Anonymous has lost the will to do this anymore. There has been a great shift in the balance of Anonymous. There was always a rift between those who wanted to do stuff for teh lulz and those who wanted to actually accomplish social change.
The lulz people have won out, and since the news media has covered it and a lot of people showed up in Guy Fawkes masks yelling stupid memes, the lulz people think it's not funny anymore.
The question isn't whether the religion has blood on its hands at some point in its history. It shouldn't even be whether it has blood on its hands now.
The question should be whether it causes more good than bad now.
Christianity, for all its faults, brings peace to a great many people. Islam may be the same, but I can't claim to be enough of an expert to say one way or another. However, my inclination is to give it the benefit of the doubt.
Confucianism, on the other hand (if you call it a religion), I think has had a net negative effect on the world.
But that could be myopia as well: Confucianism is responsible for practically all of Eastern culture. Aristotle for practically all of Western culture.
Hey, now. I believe the big bang as much as is rational (that is to say, I think it's the best explanation and will think so until we have a better scientific explanation). But I fail to see how either "everything just suddenly appeared from nothing" or "everything's always been here forever cycling between big crunches and big bangs" are any less "way out there" than "one dude made it all cuz he was bored."
What's important to note is that not all Christians believe in transubstantiation. Lutherans, for example, don't believe in transubstantiation NOR consubstantiation.
It's not a defense of Christianity (although I am Lutheran). I just wanted to point out that not all Christian sects were created equal. Some were created more equal than others.;)
No. The Federal Sentencing Guidelines state that crimes occurring out of the same transaction or occurrence or events are to have their sentences served concurrently.
I think these 4000 acts of perjury would likely count as one event. Especially because the letters were probably generated by a scripted mail merge and a webcrawler script tied together.
Indeed. They sent scaryletters to owners of HP fansites years ago when they first got control over the film rights. There was a huge boycott started by the fandom, and WB backed down.
One problem I have is that some of the major fansites (The Leaky Cauldron in particular) get invited to exclusive events on set and the movie premieres. I typically trust Melissa and the others at the site, but sometimes I wonder if they're not at least a bit subconsciously influenced to be generally positive about WB because of it.
See, for example, the absolutely glowing review of the sneak preview of Movie 6 that showed up on The Leaky Cauldron and compare it with the scathing review it got at Ain't It Cool News.
Most people didn't know the movie they were getting to see was HP6, but the person from The Leaky Cauldron did. This makes me wonder if maybe WB told them or hooked them up with seats and in exchange there's a little hint-hint-nudge-nudge about giving the film a good review after the extremely disappointing nine-month delay of the film to calm the fans down (after threats of a boycott).
I'm thinking WB knew they had a stinker on their hands and delayed it under the (originally apparently idiotic, now remarkably intelligent) excuse of making more money in the summer.
This is what copyright is for, protect the CREATOR of stuff from freeloaders so that original creators have an incentive to keep on creating.
That's not true. Under our Lockean system of government, copyright serves one purpose: to provide for a limited monopoly, which incentivizes creation of art, in order to enrich society.
there's still the matter where you can't go around selling a Harry Potter book unless you own the rights to the Harry Potter name
That's incorrect. You're conflating copyright and trademark, and grossly misstating trademark law.
You can release a product with the Harry Potter name legally and without permission from any copyright or trademark holder. Your product just cannot create consumer confusion as to the origin of the product. Hence why you have stuff like "Mugglenet's [HP book]," "The Unofficial Guide to Harry Potter," etc.
How much of the new work is copied material is not a factor for fair use analysis, and NYCL's fear that this case will be widely read and cause misunderstandings in copyright law is already coming to fruition as evidenced by your statement.
The only similar fair use factor is the amount of the original work was placed into the new work. In this case, it's something along the lines of one percent.
I think this is a case in which the judge thought that "%age use of the original work" was less a factor in fair use analysis than "%age used in the new work." Unfortunately, our federal courts have begun carelessly adding that second one in as a fifth factor of fair use analysis, when it's not supposed to be.
The four factors are:
the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; (RDR should lose this one)
the nature of the copyrighted work; (I suppose RDR should lose this one)
the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; (RDR should win this one, as his borrowing constitutes a negligible percent of the series and its supplementary materials
the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work (RDR should win this one)
So the proper analysis is not straightforward, but in my opinion, the most important factor is the fourth factor, as that's the factor I believe derives straight from the Constitution's envisioning of copyright law ("to promote the useful Arts and Sciences").
It's just unfortunate that some careless courts are adding a new fifth factor that, in my opinion, should not matter one bit: 5. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the new work as a whole
This is exactly why proper punctuation and knowledge of the use of language is important. In this situation, the meaning was ambiguous.
However, in "correct" English punctuation (assuming all English follows the American English rule on this point), the hyphen there between "pro bono" and "or" makes the meaning "also known as."/is an academic journal editor
Me, I don't believe in copyright of fictional facts -- what happens in books -- any more than I believe in copyright on store prices or baseball player statistics.
The issue here is whether a derivate work was created. You seem to be saying that a restatement of what happens in a book necessarily does not infringe because fictional facts are not copyrightable.
Rather than argue whether they are copyrightable or not, I'll present you with a reductio ad absurdum of your absolutist position.
Here's a passage from Book 1:
Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense. Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors. The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.
Note that I can make a restatement of fictional facts like this:
According to Book 1, Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.
Chapter 1 says that Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors. The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.
I submit to you that a blanket statement that fictional facts are not copyrightable merely avoids the issue that if you can just restate anything from a book and avoid copyright, then copyright is effectively castrated.
First, there is an easy way to renounce your copyright and place a work in the public domain. You simply declare that that work is in the public domain; e.g., by a statement saying "This work is in the public domain."
I can't cite anything in particular on the web, but according to Lawrence Lessig, it's not actually that easy. I attended a talk he gave, and I believe he said something along the lines of a physical conveyance has to occur to place something into the public domain when it would normally be still covered by copyright.
Secondly, there's no such thing as a "public domain license."
I think you misunderstand. The PD license mentioned by GP was not that you have to license something to place it into the public domain. Rather, it was an identification of the Creative Commons public domain dedication. If I understand correctly (we didn't cover public domain transference in my IP law class last year), this dedication is necessary to count as the "conveyance" to make something PD that wouldn't normally be PD.
I think the existence of the CC PD dedication is prima facie evidence that it's not as easy as you claim to place something into the PD.
Really? You don't think there'd be a number of lawsuits alleging that half the "John McCain" or "Barack Obama" votes were really for John McCain of New York or something?
I mean, how do you prove something like that? I think "come on, it's obvious" doesn't really hold up in court. And what about the "BO"s written in? Or the "Obama"s? Are the votes for Michelle by a few upset Hillary supporters who really want a woman to be president?
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Anonymous has lost the will to do this anymore. There has been a great shift in the balance of Anonymous. There was always a rift between those who wanted to do stuff for teh lulz and those who wanted to actually accomplish social change.
The lulz people have won out, and since the news media has covered it and a lot of people showed up in Guy Fawkes masks yelling stupid memes, the lulz people think it's not funny anymore.
Anonymous isn't going to fight this one anymore.
Two THousand Eight's Totally THrilling Edition?
I honestly can't tell if your sig is tongue in cheek, but it's "for all intents and purposes," not "for all intensive purposes."
The question isn't whether the religion has blood on its hands at some point in its history. It shouldn't even be whether it has blood on its hands now.
The question should be whether it causes more good than bad now.
Christianity, for all its faults, brings peace to a great many people. Islam may be the same, but I can't claim to be enough of an expert to say one way or another. However, my inclination is to give it the benefit of the doubt.
Confucianism, on the other hand (if you call it a religion), I think has had a net negative effect on the world.
But that could be myopia as well: Confucianism is responsible for practically all of Eastern culture. Aristotle for practically all of Western culture.
Hey, now. I believe the big bang as much as is rational (that is to say, I think it's the best explanation and will think so until we have a better scientific explanation). But I fail to see how either "everything just suddenly appeared from nothing" or "everything's always been here forever cycling between big crunches and big bangs" are any less "way out there" than "one dude made it all cuz he was bored."
What's important to note is that not all Christians believe in transubstantiation. Lutherans, for example, don't believe in transubstantiation NOR consubstantiation.
It's not a defense of Christianity (although I am Lutheran). I just wanted to point out that not all Christian sects were created equal. Some were created more equal than others. ;)
No. The Federal Sentencing Guidelines state that crimes occurring out of the same transaction or occurrence or events are to have their sentences served concurrently.
I think these 4000 acts of perjury would likely count as one event. Especially because the letters were probably generated by a scripted mail merge and a webcrawler script tied together.
Fixed that for ya.
Indeed. They sent scaryletters to owners of HP fansites years ago when they first got control over the film rights. There was a huge boycott started by the fandom, and WB backed down.
One problem I have is that some of the major fansites (The Leaky Cauldron in particular) get invited to exclusive events on set and the movie premieres. I typically trust Melissa and the others at the site, but sometimes I wonder if they're not at least a bit subconsciously influenced to be generally positive about WB because of it.
See, for example, the absolutely glowing review of the sneak preview of Movie 6 that showed up on The Leaky Cauldron and compare it with the scathing review it got at Ain't It Cool News.
Most people didn't know the movie they were getting to see was HP6, but the person from The Leaky Cauldron did. This makes me wonder if maybe WB told them or hooked them up with seats and in exchange there's a little hint-hint-nudge-nudge about giving the film a good review after the extremely disappointing nine-month delay of the film to calm the fans down (after threats of a boycott).
I'm thinking WB knew they had a stinker on their hands and delayed it under the (originally apparently idiotic, now remarkably intelligent) excuse of making more money in the summer.
I propose / be called "Unix slash," and \ be called "Windows slash."
Now excuse me while I copy C:\test.tst to a thumb drive and then copy that to ~/Desktop/test.tst on my Linux machine.
Horseshit. After seeing your comment, I wondered for how much she and WB sued. I just read the original complaint.
The relief it seeks is (1) a permanent injunction, and (2) atty's fees plus damages that cannot be ascertained until trial.
Furthermore, the complaint states that damages will be donated to charity. So it's not really about greed as many have said.
That's not true. Under our Lockean system of government, copyright serves one purpose: to provide for a limited monopoly, which incentivizes creation of art, in order to enrich society.
That's incorrect. You're conflating copyright and trademark, and grossly misstating trademark law.
You can release a product with the Harry Potter name legally and without permission from any copyright or trademark holder. Your product just cannot create consumer confusion as to the origin of the product. Hence why you have stuff like "Mugglenet's [HP book]," "The Unofficial Guide to Harry Potter," etc.
How much of the new work is copied material is not a factor for fair use analysis, and NYCL's fear that this case will be widely read and cause misunderstandings in copyright law is already coming to fruition as evidenced by your statement.
The only similar fair use factor is the amount of the original work was placed into the new work. In this case, it's something along the lines of one percent.
I think this is a case in which the judge thought that "%age use of the original work" was less a factor in fair use analysis than "%age used in the new work." Unfortunately, our federal courts have begun carelessly adding that second one in as a fifth factor of fair use analysis, when it's not supposed to be.
The four factors are:
So the proper analysis is not straightforward, but in my opinion, the most important factor is the fourth factor, as that's the factor I believe derives straight from the Constitution's envisioning of copyright law ("to promote the useful Arts and Sciences").
It's just unfortunate that some careless courts are adding a new fifth factor that, in my opinion, should not matter one bit:
5. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the new work as a whole
Silly, silly fed courts.
This is exactly why proper punctuation and knowledge of the use of language is important. In this situation, the meaning was ambiguous.
However, in "correct" English punctuation (assuming all English follows the American English rule on this point), the hyphen there between "pro bono" and "or" makes the meaning "also known as." /is an academic journal editor
The issue here is whether a derivate work was created. You seem to be saying that a restatement of what happens in a book necessarily does not infringe because fictional facts are not copyrightable.
Rather than argue whether they are copyrightable or not, I'll present you with a reductio ad absurdum of your absolutist position.
Here's a passage from Book 1:
Note that I can make a restatement of fictional facts like this:
I submit to you that a blanket statement that fictional facts are not copyrightable merely avoids the issue that if you can just restate anything from a book and avoid copyright, then copyright is effectively castrated.
Actually, using an author's work to criticize their own treatment of the work would be more accurately called satire.
I can't cite anything in particular on the web, but according to Lawrence Lessig, it's not actually that easy. I attended a talk he gave, and I believe he said something along the lines of a physical conveyance has to occur to place something into the public domain when it would normally be still covered by copyright.
I think you misunderstand. The PD license mentioned by GP was not that you have to license something to place it into the public domain. Rather, it was an identification of the Creative Commons public domain dedication. If I understand correctly (we didn't cover public domain transference in my IP law class last year), this dedication is necessary to count as the "conveyance" to make something PD that wouldn't normally be PD.
I think the existence of the CC PD dedication is prima facie evidence that it's not as easy as you claim to place something into the PD.
I'm sorry, San Francisco, I'm afraid I can't let you do that.
Really? You don't think there'd be a number of lawsuits alleging that half the "John McCain" or "Barack Obama" votes were really for John McCain of New York or something?
I mean, how do you prove something like that? I think "come on, it's obvious" doesn't really hold up in court. And what about the "BO"s written in? Or the "Obama"s? Are the votes for Michelle by a few upset Hillary supporters who really want a woman to be president?
Et cetera.
Well, "Cambria" means "Wales." Dunno about Coheed, though. Ireland?
I honorarily award you a 6-digit UID to mark the occasion: 999,999.
This isn't off-topic (maybe -1: Did not click link, though)! Iran was caught photoshopping a missile launch a few weeks ago.
I wouldn't call Muslims becoming interested in science a "sudden interest." I'd call it a rediscovery of the traditions.