Hah! If they wrote the music (and most bands' music is written by a proper subset of the band, if not the band as a whole), then they most certainly do! Especially for a freshman album, when most of the music was written before a contract was signed, which means it is a legal impossibility for anyone else to own the copyright, as any transfer of copyright that is not a "work for hire" (which must be specified in writing before the fact) is revocable by the original copyright holder.
No, her lawyers were dumb enough to work pro bono.
Good God, you're an ass. You don't believe in charity and you have no concept of free advertising, either. So whether the lawyers did it for their benefit or just to be good people, you exclude both alternatives in favor of "they r dum."
Copyright/trademark/patent laws were meant to target people making money from other people's IP.
No they weren't! The Copyright Act itself sets forth a system of damages, and then ends with "oh, by the way, let's make certain types of infringement criminal!" These "certain types" include "for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain."
Congress has been delineating commercial and non-commercial activity for centuries. It is de rigueur. Why do you think they forgot to in this instance? Have you read legislative comments for the Copyright Act and the floor debates on the issue that I haven't?
As a civil, not criminal, system, it is set up to make the injured party whole, not punish the offender. As such, the commercial/non-commercial distinction is bunk. A copyright holder is equally injured if I give my friend a burned CD or if I sell him one for a nickel. (Well, I suppose there's some argument to be made that there are some albums he wouldn't pay a nickel for but he'd accept for free, but you'd probably look pretty ridiculous trying to fashion a legitimate argument around that fact.)
Individual file sharers do not benefit from sharing their files. They do not get to access more files, and they do not get paid for their activities.
1. benefit: Have you ever used Bittorrent? 2. access: Are you aware of ratios? Many, many trackers will ban you if you don't seed sufficiently. Others give high-ratio users early access to torrents! 3. payment: Money is not the only method of payment. Or if I swap a CD for a basket of eggs, am I not engaging in commercial activity?
Perhaps a copyright system that only applies to commercial use of creative works?
This has been discussed by the Supreme Court before (in Grokster, IIRC), and they came to the (correct, in my view) conclusion that commerciality does not require the exchange of money.
So it's not much of a logical jump (and, again, the SCOTUS did this in Grokster) to conclude that two parties swapping files with one another online are engaging in commercial activity.
Care to venture a guess at defining "commercial activity" to exempt this sort of "two guys who don't know each other at all swapping files" case that you seem to desperately want to make legal?
Yeah, there are some Article I bankruptcy courts that have held that. But they do not create binding precedent anywhere. And the circuit courts (which do create binding precedent) have overruled them!
9th Cir. overrules. Perhaps reread that case to understand what "willful" in the context of dischargeability is. It is not the same as willfulness when discussing statutory damages in a copyright infringement action.
And that's not even getting into the issue of whether she maliciously infringed the copyright! Since, according to certain courts (like the Ninth Circuit in the aforementioned opinion), willfulness and maliciousness are separate prongs of the dischargeability analysis.
Then we got EULA's and all the crappy stupidity that entails
You very likely mean "shrinkwrap license" and not "EULA," as "EULA" is just a generic term for any license between the end user and someone involved in getting the software to him.
For example, the MIT license is a EULA. The GPL is a EULA.
On a more realistic note, if there was no such thing as free will, then science would never have developed anything. No thinking "outside the box" allowed
What a marvelously conclusory statement without an ounce of logical reasoning provided! You're ignoring the obvious explanation that science developed because of a sequence of random events. The whole "million chimps, million typewriters" deal. Your argument is glorified creationism: "Things only could have come about if there were a (free-willed) designer!"
philosophy has never been one of my strong subjects
And that's the downside of utilitarianism: it can be used to construct a framework under which almost anything appears ethical, even though a further refinement shows just the opposite. It's a problem, because people tend to stop looking any further once they have a reason why the thing they want to do is the "right" thing to do.
No, it sounds like that's the downside to a misuse of utilitarianism. You're basically saying "oh, a downside to utilitarianism is EXAMPLE_WHERE_SOMEONE_DOES_NOT_USE_UTILITARIANISM."
I hope that they recognize utilitarianism can be used to justify evil things including letting a few starve so everyone else can live
On the other hand, I hope you realize your anti-utilitarianism can be used to justify evil things including letting everyone die so a few don't starve.
Only if you distribute the program the restriction kicks in. If you just use the program no one is going to force you to post the changes and modifications.
To be fair to pnewhook, that sounds pretty damn similar to a "restriction" to me.
Then there's the legal system. Self-defence makes murder legal. Hmm. But if your life is worth the same as your would-be killer, you should be just as liable for his death as he would have been for yours.
That's actually fallacious reasoning. Let me show you why:
Assume: All lives are equally valuable.
Case 1: Do not kill murderer: you die. Murderer has created a 1-life deficit. Case 2: Murderer attempts to kill you, which will create a 1-life deficit. You defend yourself and kill the murderer. The outcome is a 1-life deficit. You yourself have not contributed to the life-deficit at all!
Now consider a person not intent on murder attacks you:
Case 1: Do not kill assailant: you are injured. No change in life-deficit. Case 2: Kill assailant: assailant is dead. 1-life deficit. Here, you'd be punished for killing the assailant, as you contributed to the life-deficit.
So as you can see, the axiom "all lives are equally valuable" is consistent with "murdering in self-defense shall not be a punishable offense if you would otherwise be murdered yourself."
You're making an awfully damn fallacious assumption that all scholars agree with Dred Scott, Kelo, and one interpretation of the 2nd Amendment.
And if you can't understand how it is even plausible that A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed couldn't possibly mean the right to bear arms is guaranteed because [and, therefore, only so long as] a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, then I don't really care to give your opinions any consideration, as you seem unreasonably rigid. The Constitution is uncommonly terse, so it seems "A well regulated . . . free State" is an anomalous superfluity.
(For what it's worth, I don't think the Second Amendment applies only to militias, but I can at least see how reasonable people can disagree on that fact.)
A fancy form of direct democracy might not be perfect, but could it be any worse than this sort of plutocratic authoritarianism we live under now?
Direct democracy would be a categorical disaster for the US. How in the world do you think the average person is even remotely qualified to opine on 99.9% of issues that come before the federal government? Not just because the issues are complex, but because no one has the time to learn about the issues!
We have a republic because we elect people to dedicate their time to understanding the issues. Sure, they don't always (hardly ever?) do it, but we could have a republican government with a law banning personal hygiene and I'd still rather live in such a republic than any direct democracy.
Before anyone jumps in to argue that patents protect what would be otherwise trade secrets, so there need be no protection for trade secrets, the point is this: you can't force someone to reveal their secrets, so you induce them but guaranteeing them if they reveal the secret, they'll have the full might of the government helping them out.
If your unpatented trade secret is revealed, you have recourse against the person who leaked it (often an employee with shallow pockets filled with dust, not greenbacks), but not against anyone who uses the trade secret. This is often the case when a mid-level employee leaves a service company and starts poaching the company's clients by using the company's secret client list.
After all, most of their users don't care about privacy (and I mean that they don't care, not that they "don't understand").
No, you asshat. We just don't care about certain things remaining private that you care about. You might as well say anyone who goes outside "does not care about privacy."
I don't care if a corporation knows I like Ben Folds and have a friend who goes to MIT. I do care if a random person at Borders can log in as me and change my profile picture to Goatse or send a message to a friend insulting them subtly, so that it is not obvious that I was hacked.
What is protected? Does the protection extends to the building itself or only to the plans/drafts/etc?
All of them. According to 17 USC 102, you get copyright protection for an architectural work provided you meet these requirements:
fixed in any tangible medium of expression
from which [the work] can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated
either directly or with the aid of a device
A building itself is fixed in a tangible medium (of brick, e.g.), and can be perceived, usually directly. Note that if the building is not visible from a public space, then the rules are different, I think.
Now, the scope of copyright in an architectural work is not as broad as, say, the copyright in a musical work. Namely, based on 17 USC 120, "[t]he copyright in an architectural work that has been constructed does not include the right to prevent the making, distributing, or public display of pictures, paintings, photographs, or other pictorial representations of the work, if the building in which the work is embodied is located in or ordinarily visible from a public place."
Which is why you can take a picture of the exterior of any number of buildings designed in the past few decades without permission from the copyright holder.
In this case, the curators/owners would be entitled to ask for a penalty to be paid by the person in breach of the contract, meaning that:
That's actually a really, really insightful argument, and I'm surprised someone on Slashdot was able to articulate that distinction. (I'm assuming you're not a lawyer based on your ignorance of the law pertaining to copyright of architectural works.)
Since no copyright was violated, yes, no penalty would be owed due to copyright violation. Rather, a license was broken, and some sort of liquidated damages clause, actual damages, or injunctive relief (preventing further sale of the stock photographs) would be proper, I think.
Probably, you'd go after the photographer to have him tell the stock photo vendor he can't sell the photo anymore. If he sold the copyright, he'd have to pay damages or something. I'm not really sure. Since I'm still a young lawyer, my knowledge of the actual remedies in such a case are purely theoretical;)
Slashdot Mirror
Hah! If they wrote the music (and most bands' music is written by a proper subset of the band, if not the band as a whole), then they most certainly do! Especially for a freshman album, when most of the music was written before a contract was signed, which means it is a legal impossibility for anyone else to own the copyright, as any transfer of copyright that is not a "work for hire" (which must be specified in writing before the fact) is revocable by the original copyright holder.
Good God, you're an ass. You don't believe in charity and you have no concept of free advertising, either. So whether the lawyers did it for their benefit or just to be good people, you exclude both alternatives in favor of "they r dum."
Yeah. Remind me to bring up this salient fact whenever Slashdot starts railing on about how corrupt federal judges are in the pocket of big business.
No they weren't! The Copyright Act itself sets forth a system of damages, and then ends with "oh, by the way, let's make certain types of infringement criminal!" These "certain types" include "for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain."
Congress has been delineating commercial and non-commercial activity for centuries. It is de rigueur. Why do you think they forgot to in this instance? Have you read legislative comments for the Copyright Act and the floor debates on the issue that I haven't?
As a civil, not criminal, system, it is set up to make the injured party whole, not punish the offender. As such, the commercial/non-commercial distinction is bunk. A copyright holder is equally injured if I give my friend a burned CD or if I sell him one for a nickel. (Well, I suppose there's some argument to be made that there are some albums he wouldn't pay a nickel for but he'd accept for free, but you'd probably look pretty ridiculous trying to fashion a legitimate argument around that fact.)
1. benefit: Have you ever used Bittorrent?
2. access: Are you aware of ratios? Many, many trackers will ban you if you don't seed sufficiently. Others give high-ratio users early access to torrents!
3. payment: Money is not the only method of payment. Or if I swap a CD for a basket of eggs, am I not engaging in commercial activity?
This has been discussed by the Supreme Court before (in Grokster, IIRC), and they came to the (correct, in my view) conclusion that commerciality does not require the exchange of money.
So it's not much of a logical jump (and, again, the SCOTUS did this in Grokster) to conclude that two parties swapping files with one another online are engaging in commercial activity.
Care to venture a guess at defining "commercial activity" to exempt this sort of "two guys who don't know each other at all swapping files" case that you seem to desperately want to make legal?
Yeah, there are some Article I bankruptcy courts that have held that. But they do not create binding precedent anywhere. And the circuit courts (which do create binding precedent) have overruled them!
9th Cir. overrules. Perhaps reread that case to understand what "willful" in the context of dischargeability is. It is not the same as willfulness when discussing statutory damages in a copyright infringement action.
And that's not even getting into the issue of whether she maliciously infringed the copyright! Since, according to certain courts (like the Ninth Circuit in the aforementioned opinion), willfulness and maliciousness are separate prongs of the dischargeability analysis.
You very likely mean "shrinkwrap license" and not "EULA," as "EULA" is just a generic term for any license between the end user and someone involved in getting the software to him.
For example, the MIT license is a EULA. The GPL is a EULA.
Are you new here?
Not to mention that Justice Willett, the author of the opinion, served in the Bush White House. :)
What a marvelously conclusory statement without an ounce of logical reasoning provided! You're ignoring the obvious explanation that science developed because of a sequence of random events. The whole "million chimps, million typewriters" deal. Your argument is glorified creationism: "Things only could have come about if there were a (free-willed) designer!"
That explains it!
No, it sounds like that's the downside to a misuse of utilitarianism. You're basically saying "oh, a downside to utilitarianism is EXAMPLE_WHERE_SOMEONE_DOES_NOT_USE_UTILITARIANISM."
On the other hand, I hope you realize your anti-utilitarianism can be used to justify evil things including letting everyone die so a few don't starve.
To be fair to pnewhook, that sounds pretty damn similar to a "restriction" to me.
Why the hell are you talking about North Korea?
Not only is Seoul in South Korea, but the Simpsons is animated in South Korea.
That's actually fallacious reasoning. Let me show you why:
Assume: All lives are equally valuable.
Case 1: Do not kill murderer: you die. Murderer has created a 1-life deficit.
Case 2: Murderer attempts to kill you, which will create a 1-life deficit. You defend yourself and kill the murderer. The outcome is a 1-life deficit. You yourself have not contributed to the life-deficit at all!
Now consider a person not intent on murder attacks you:
Case 1: Do not kill assailant: you are injured. No change in life-deficit.
Case 2: Kill assailant: assailant is dead. 1-life deficit. Here, you'd be punished for killing the assailant, as you contributed to the life-deficit.
So as you can see, the axiom "all lives are equally valuable" is consistent with "murdering in self-defense shall not be a punishable offense if you would otherwise be murdered yourself."
Thank you. This is one of the funniest /. comments I've seen in quite some time.
You're making an awfully damn fallacious assumption that all scholars agree with Dred Scott, Kelo, and one interpretation of the 2nd Amendment.
And if you can't understand how it is even plausible that A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed couldn't possibly mean the right to bear arms is guaranteed because [and, therefore, only so long as] a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, then I don't really care to give your opinions any consideration, as you seem unreasonably rigid. The Constitution is uncommonly terse, so it seems "A well regulated . . . free State" is an anomalous superfluity.
(For what it's worth, I don't think the Second Amendment applies only to militias, but I can at least see how reasonable people can disagree on that fact.)
Direct democracy would be a categorical disaster for the US. How in the world do you think the average person is even remotely qualified to opine on 99.9% of issues that come before the federal government? Not just because the issues are complex, but because no one has the time to learn about the issues!
We have a republic because we elect people to dedicate their time to understanding the issues. Sure, they don't always (hardly ever?) do it, but we could have a republican government with a law banning personal hygiene and I'd still rather live in such a republic than any direct democracy.
Please defend this assertion, Mister Conclusorystatement.
Before anyone jumps in to argue that patents protect what would be otherwise trade secrets, so there need be no protection for trade secrets, the point is this: you can't force someone to reveal their secrets, so you induce them but guaranteeing them if they reveal the secret, they'll have the full might of the government helping them out.
If your unpatented trade secret is revealed, you have recourse against the person who leaked it (often an employee with shallow pockets filled with dust, not greenbacks), but not against anyone who uses the trade secret. This is often the case when a mid-level employee leaves a service company and starts poaching the company's clients by using the company's secret client list.
No, you asshat. We just don't care about certain things remaining private that you care about. You might as well say anyone who goes outside "does not care about privacy."
I don't care if a corporation knows I like Ben Folds and have a friend who goes to MIT. I do care if a random person at Borders can log in as me and change my profile picture to Goatse or send a message to a friend insulting them subtly, so that it is not obvious that I was hacked.
All of them. According to 17 USC 102, you get copyright protection for an architectural work provided you meet these requirements:
A building itself is fixed in a tangible medium (of brick, e.g.), and can be perceived, usually directly. Note that if the building is not visible from a public space, then the rules are different, I think.
Now, the scope of copyright in an architectural work is not as broad as, say, the copyright in a musical work. Namely, based on 17 USC 120, "[t]he copyright in an architectural work that has been constructed does not include the right to prevent the making, distributing, or public display of pictures, paintings, photographs, or other pictorial representations of the work, if the building in which the work is embodied is located in or ordinarily visible from a public place."
Which is why you can take a picture of the exterior of any number of buildings designed in the past few decades without permission from the copyright holder.
That's actually a really, really insightful argument, and I'm surprised someone on Slashdot was able to articulate that distinction. (I'm assuming you're not a lawyer based on your ignorance of the law pertaining to copyright of architectural works.)
Since no copyright was violated, yes, no penalty would be owed due to copyright violation. Rather, a license was broken, and some sort of liquidated damages clause, actual damages, or injunctive relief (preventing further sale of the stock photographs) would be proper, I think.
Probably, you'd go after the photographer to have him tell the stock photo vendor he can't sell the photo anymore. If he sold the copyright, he'd have to pay damages or something. I'm not really sure. Since I'm still a young lawyer, my knowledge of the actual remedies in such a case are purely theoretical ;)
That's no Big Ben! It's just a
*tries to fit in pun about Lulworth and fails*