But why is it legal to trademark a non-company name? There's no such thing as "parent company". The only reason that "logic" is used is to justify using multiple names. If a company doesn't want to associate cigarettes with food, then *don't sell both*. Using multiple names is paramount to fraud (deception to gain money), and while I don't think the FTC should be going after them for just using multiple names, as its no business of the government to decide what one calls oneself, trademark protection shouldn't extend out to these multiple names. Trademarks are designed to protect the customer*, after all.
* Okay, this is a debatable point; while trademarks do allow for brand recognition which can clearly be seen as designed to benefit a company, they also include culpability since a company has to work** to remain an association of "quality"/"price" with its trademarks.
** Well, that's how it's supposed to work; it's not supposed to work by having celeb X endorse their product. The fact that people rely on that is a sign that the quality difference is so small, the price difference is so small, or people are willing to pay a price premium to buy a product that celeb X endorses which in most cases is just inefficiency.
No, the FCC shouldn't be involved in it. It's called blocking all channels which don't provide the broadcast ratings. Now, if they *lie* in their broadcast ratings, maybe then the FCC (or FTC) should get involved. It seems obvious to me that the V-Chip is only part of the answer with another other part being the parent being around your kid so they can't disconnect the V-Chip (since the truth is, the only sane way for most parents to be able to afford a V-Chip is if it's a relatively cheap add-on).
I don't think the grandparent-poster was calling out for a legal basis for reasonable prices (well, not price controls). I think he was stating more outrage that a few companies will market the same good at different prices without adding any value to differentiate them. In other words, he (and I, truthfully) wishes that there was enough information out there that consumers *could* be well informed, then they could make reasonable judgments of prices. Vague model numbers, possessing multiple brand names, or rebranding the goods of other companies without reasonable attribution of what rebranding entails all seem various degrees of deceptive (vague model numbers being at their best the least deceptive since it's hard to be succinct in a reasonable length name for a large class of similar goods).
Of course, I could be wrong and "all pay the same reasonable price" might be the unreasonable request that reasonably different goods should cost the same price. The only thing I am aware of is that it's impossible for the free market to function properly without an informed consumer, a lacking of which at least some of these goods rely on to exist.
Please don't take this to mean that I'm certain that being informed would guarantee that everyone would pay a reasonable price as even without deception it's from difficult to consumer agnostic to impossible that a consumer will pay a reasonable price in either direction; I'd like it to be proven that information can solve all ills and not assume it; I can reasonably say the opposite (withholding information) has proven to be detrimental in several cases which is a sign that it isn't a panacea).
Anything short of Kerry saying, "I will veto all bills Congress passes until they provide a bill to revoke the Patriot Act and undo all the damage done up to this point (freeing people, making unsecret all secret courts, telling everyone what information they collected, etc)." The fact is, even if such a bill was provided, it's unlikely the damage *can* be undone, as a lot of the "secret" information not only was probably not kept (lack of records to keep it secret), but undoubtly those who invoked the Patriot Act in the government don't want to announce their various non-ethical usages of it. There's nothing really to compel them to hand over such information, either (trying to do a witch hunt for possible information can't be done effectively). It's for this reason, that laws like the Patriot Act should *never* be passed or endorsed. Trying to fix the problem now is much too late a point. Bowing down to fear that Bush will stay in office and continue with an Act that Kerry voted for is the same nature of events that allowed the Patriot Act to be passed without mass riots in the first place!
I think his point was that if you take off the high, people will just take *gobs* more to try to increase their sub-high. Ie, all this vaccination will do is greatly increase your drug tolerance and if anything *that's* the major reason for escalating crime (more drugs to get you high) as well as overdosing (you might build up a tolerance to feeling good, but you don't build up a tolerance to the side-effects of the drug which lead to you dying). Work should go towards making a vaccine to decrease the rate of tolerance and/or decrease the addictiveness of the drug. This vaccine sounds more like it'll just accelerate the time between a junky's first hit and them dying of an overdose.
Sorry, I did miss your point. I think I mostly missed it precisely *because* politicians keep trying to ban guns because they "might" hurt people. I'm sorry that I mistook your comment.
Explosive decompression is pretty clearly a myth (Mythbusters did most of a 60 minute show on it clearly showing that the pressure difference between 30,000ft and 0ft isn't enough to cause massive holes in the airplane). The only real threat is depressurizing of the cabin for which a relatively rapid decent and emergency landing could resolve the conflict with few to no fatalties associated with oxygen depravation. Planes have even been known to land when bombs have blown huge holes in the side. That's not to say that an unlikely set of circumstances couldn't make a lone gunman capable of taking down a plane before someone else with a gun is able to stop them, but even killing pilot and copilot is no real guarantee that the plane can't be landed by someone instructing over radio/phone/whatever.
Why would you be in jail? Like I said, possessing a gun on a flight is a *private* matter. The airline is a private company. You're a private entity. Your possessing or not possessing a gun on a flight is up to a contract between you and said airline. The government should neither require that no one may carry a gun on a flight nor should they be doing the security work of private airlines (hell, they shouldn't be loaning airlines gobs of money just because they're failing). If you happen to violate some ground law over the airspace of some country (say, shooting people), then you can go to jail. But most countries have a concept of self-defense as a legal defense for shooting someone.
Maybe it's just Congress' way of telling Intel, et al they need to donate more. It'd be interesting if MS sued the Republican/Democrat parties for racketeering (MS lobbying went from ziltch to a tidy sum, then the case collapsed nicely). Maybe Intel, et al can sue for racketeering for the same reason. Or maybe they can sue the RIAA, et al as they're the actual puppet masters.
Did he say that guns should be illegal? The whole "don't carry guns" thing is really a private matter for which airlines can just blacklist you for flying with a gun, if they wish. And those where you can carry a gun, there might be a few more dead hijackers instead of a lot of hostages. But, who knows..
Just to expand on the point, I really wish that copyright was renamed (copy&distribute)right, as it's clearly okay to just copy (fair use) or distribute (first sale). Further evaluation of "copyright" actually leaves me wondering if in the US one is copyright infringing by receiving an illicitly distributed copyrighted work or if only the sender is the infringer. It is, after all, the copy&distribution that's covered, not the possession.
1. Publish your mainboard BIOS as Open Source 2. Wait for people to compile their own BIOS 3. Go out of business because the boot-block bios allows reflashing to a sane bios rather trivially
It's in everyone's best interest but AMI and Phoenix that BIOSs go free source. I'm still waiting for Intel or a major OEM to do it.
They're called OEMs. They sell millions of PCs with millions of motherboards containing millions of BIOSs. Cutting out the cost of paying for a BIOS for every PC might only be a few pennies, but multiply that by the millions of PCs sold and there's clearly cost savings possible (to put it another way, whatever money BIOS makers are making as profit could be shifted to the OEMs). Of course, each OEM would probably prefer just buying out all the BIOS makers and crushing all the competitors, but since that's not very probable to occur, the next cheapest thing is to make a FSS "BIOS" (a closed source one would mean taking the entire burden of production of code which might cost more than the savings of using one's own BIOS; the same might be true for FSS, but there's at least the likely probability that other OEMs will take your BIOS, modify it, and then be either forced to offer the source (ie, free source upgrades) with the BIOS or be sued into oblivion for copyright infringment). I'd guess the only thing really stopping OEMs is that none are willing to take the risk.
I think his point that possessing missile launchers, dead [human?] babies, or crack cocaine are illegal period. The only reason said MOD chips are illegal is because of their ability to modify a PS2. To put it more analogous, it'd be like banning diesal-converters in California because most car owners who did use such a modification would make a car that violates admission standards.
But, diesal-converters aren't inherently dangerous or disrespectful of human life. It just seems to most people that the law is being interpreted in a way to advantage some (Sony, who can now go after all MOD chip makers which should hopefully decrease piracy) over others (all the people using the MOD chips, for illegal or legal purposes). It seems silly to make illegal what can be used for legal purposes solely because a group doesn't like it.
It's not like Sony couldn't track down mod chip buyers and sue them individually if it believes they're violating copyright. That's the way the UK (and US) system is supposed to work, where you're guilty only after doing something wrong (I don't see how you can say the MOD chips themselves are wrong). Of course, the same could be argued about the missile launcher and the crack cocaine. People should be able to own nukes, even. As for the dead babies, I'm hard pressed to say how that their use in any way is itself harmful; I don't see how one could acquire that many in reasonable state of being under any legal basis, though; if one could though, like I said, I don't see why it should be illegal.
Okay, here's a question that might make a relevant point. Can anyone watch the feeds from these cameras? If it's the government putting up the cameras, it should be everyone who can watch them. And since the government is putting up cameras all over the place in public, doesn't that mean citizens can do it too? Right now, I doubt there's anything to stop you from doing it except that you'd need your own security force to prevent it being stolen. But if the government tracks and punishes violators who steal/break their cameras, isn't it reasonable to expect them to do the same with your cameras as well (I say this under the basis that it's public land and that means it's under the jurisdiction of the government to watch over)? The problem isn't so much that cameras mean a lack of privacy, it's that the government are singularly the watchers and deciders on camera placement. If everyone could do it, we'd be back to anonymity through sheer bulk of information.
Photography is clearly work-for-hire. A more valid comparison would be a programmer hired to write up a program in VB or Delphi who gives the company the binary that they're allowed to copy, modify, etc while keeping the copyright on the source. I don't think any sane company would agree to such an arrangement. Yes, a photographer or programmer has the right to demand such things, but the buyer can demand anything he wants; I and many people here realize that amateurs are probably more likely to be flexible in such demands because they don't plan on using the copyright on high quality source as a "racket" to gain more money in the future. Photographers are paid to take pictures. If people want more work from the photographer (like further development work), it should be their choice, not a legally enforced condition (okay, technically they *could* hire anyone to work on the binary/low quality prints, but that's a pretty unreasonable condition). I would guess it more market efficient to have the photography and development jobs separate.
Everyone knows Janus grows up/is growing up/will grow up to be Magus, and we know how much of a prick he turned out to be. Do we expect MS's system to turn out any different or do you blame it all on time travel?
I concur. Wasn't cable supposed to be no advertisements? Hell, movie theaters and DVDs *both* have advertisements (and even product placements, which is a more subliminal form of advertisement). You get to pay for the privilege of giving the makers even more money. It's ironic to me that more TV stations don't just stream shows with commercials online for the extra money. Hell, they could even allow for d/ling with some DRM to count how many times you watch the slow. And then you can buy the DVD with the commercials included and you'll see the same thing. Of course with a *truly* wired home, advertisers could start paying based on buy-through on what people purchase through their TV. Ain't the future grand?
When did Bill Maher said this? If you're refering the infamous comment he made on "Politically Incorrect", he said that the terrorists who flew the planes on 9/11 *weren't* cowards. He, and I agree with this, said that it takes some "balls" (not his words, exactly, but the gist of what he was saying) to fly a plane into a building knowing full well it means you're going to die. And I point this out because it seems what he said has been twisted around a lot then passed along (sort of like the game "telephone"). Even if he *had* said something outright infuriating to me, I'd still not think to censor him. You only censor people you're either afraid are telling the truth or have enough influence to lie that people won't believe the truth when later presented with it. It's moronic then that the government wants to censor Howard Stern, yet Bush can keep on lying while his supports (e.g. Fox News) deny any chance he is wrong.
That's like saying the oil monopoly wasn't a monopoly because there's always the sun as an energy source or there's sugar as an energy source. There's no perfect substitute for oil/gasoline, nor is there any perfect substitute for StorageTek's IP. By definition, copyright is all about having monopolistic control over a good. Oligarchies can form because of good substitutes, but that's it. In this case, StorageTek doesn't have a monopoly over tape drives, but they do have a monopoly over the software written for said tape drive. And they're using said monopoly to gain control in another market.
Selling aluminum really, really cheap is in itself nothing. It's only when the company has the means through one monopoly (say oil production) to undercut aluminum manufacturers thus extending their monopolistic control into another market that it's abuse. Only selling below the cost of production is by itself foolish behavior that'll run a company into the ground. You'll notice this means that non-monopolies (say Pepsi) can undersell aluminum without violating anti-trust laws.
The only real thing I guess you could claim is that there is no market for IP to StorageTek's product, therefore there isn't a market for them to be a monopoly in. But I'd say, it's their control over the inclusion of software with their hardware that makes no market exist. But I guess there's always room to quibble over if they're monopoly enough to be covered under anti-trust laws.
StorageTek is using their monopoly power over their IP to gain market share in the maintenance of their IP (production and maintenance are clearly two different markets; just ask clothes manufacturers and cleaners (and imagine Levi suing cleaning places for cleaning Levi clothing without permission)). This sounds like an abuse of a monopoly to me.
PS: I realize you were answering the specific point about monopolies in themselves not being illegal. I just wanted to add my 2 cents about this case.
If the DMCA is only there to punish people who are already breaking the law, for what use is the DMCA? The DMCA is simply an overbroadening of "IP" rights which clearly go against fair use (exceptioning for fair use nullifies the extended reach of the DMCA which makes the DMCA pointless). The point, however, is to have a legal basis to harrass companies and quiet those without the financial resources to defend themselves. When will a company be countersued for racketeering for suing under the DMCA? Maybe then companies will stop suing under the DMCA.
Yes, it is "Year of Hell" that the Krenim Imperium Time Ship is going about causing temporal incursions and removing from history rival species. There is some indication in "Relativity" that Braxton's future self, who is the cause of the temporal bomb, has some grudge against Janeway and all the temporal havoc he's had to clean-up because of her. He talks of "Three violations that I had to repair!" which I assume include the "Year of Hell" incident. So, it's possible that the time ship Relativity will fix all of Enterprise in the end, but it seems all a bit crazy, round-about way of telling a story that will never exist.
Slashdot Mirror
But why is it legal to trademark a non-company name? There's no such thing as "parent company". The only reason that "logic" is used is to justify using multiple names. If a company doesn't want to associate cigarettes with food, then *don't sell both*. Using multiple names is paramount to fraud (deception to gain money), and while I don't think the FTC should be going after them for just using multiple names, as its no business of the government to decide what one calls oneself, trademark protection shouldn't extend out to these multiple names. Trademarks are designed to protect the customer*, after all.
* Okay, this is a debatable point; while trademarks do allow for brand recognition which can clearly be seen as designed to benefit a company, they also include culpability since a company has to work** to remain an association of "quality"/"price" with its trademarks.
** Well, that's how it's supposed to work; it's not supposed to work by having celeb X endorse their product. The fact that people rely on that is a sign that the quality difference is so small, the price difference is so small, or people are willing to pay a price premium to buy a product that celeb X endorses which in most cases is just inefficiency.
No, the FCC shouldn't be involved in it. It's called blocking all channels which don't provide the broadcast ratings. Now, if they *lie* in their broadcast ratings, maybe then the FCC (or FTC) should get involved. It seems obvious to me that the V-Chip is only part of the answer with another other part being the parent being around your kid so they can't disconnect the V-Chip (since the truth is, the only sane way for most parents to be able to afford a V-Chip is if it's a relatively cheap add-on).
I don't think the grandparent-poster was calling out for a legal basis for reasonable prices (well, not price controls). I think he was stating more outrage that a few companies will market the same good at different prices without adding any value to differentiate them. In other words, he (and I, truthfully) wishes that there was enough information out there that consumers *could* be well informed, then they could make reasonable judgments of prices. Vague model numbers, possessing multiple brand names, or rebranding the goods of other companies without reasonable attribution of what rebranding entails all seem various degrees of deceptive (vague model numbers being at their best the least deceptive since it's hard to be succinct in a reasonable length name for a large class of similar goods).
Of course, I could be wrong and "all pay the same reasonable price" might be the unreasonable request that reasonably different goods should cost the same price. The only thing I am aware of is that it's impossible for the free market to function properly without an informed consumer, a lacking of which at least some of these goods rely on to exist.
Please don't take this to mean that I'm certain that being informed would guarantee that everyone would pay a reasonable price as even without deception it's from difficult to consumer agnostic to impossible that a consumer will pay a reasonable price in either direction; I'd like it to be proven that information can solve all ills and not assume it; I can reasonably say the opposite (withholding information) has proven to be detrimental in several cases which is a sign that it isn't a panacea).
Anything short of Kerry saying, "I will veto all bills Congress passes until they provide a bill to revoke the Patriot Act and undo all the damage done up to this point (freeing people, making unsecret all secret courts, telling everyone what information they collected, etc)." The fact is, even if such a bill was provided, it's unlikely the damage *can* be undone, as a lot of the "secret" information not only was probably not kept (lack of records to keep it secret), but undoubtly those who invoked the Patriot Act in the government don't want to announce their various non-ethical usages of it. There's nothing really to compel them to hand over such information, either (trying to do a witch hunt for possible information can't be done effectively). It's for this reason, that laws like the Patriot Act should *never* be passed or endorsed. Trying to fix the problem now is much too late a point. Bowing down to fear that Bush will stay in office and continue with an Act that Kerry voted for is the same nature of events that allowed the Patriot Act to be passed without mass riots in the first place!
I think his point was that if you take off the high, people will just take *gobs* more to try to increase their sub-high. Ie, all this vaccination will do is greatly increase your drug tolerance and if anything *that's* the major reason for escalating crime (more drugs to get you high) as well as overdosing (you might build up a tolerance to feeling good, but you don't build up a tolerance to the side-effects of the drug which lead to you dying). Work should go towards making a vaccine to decrease the rate of tolerance and/or decrease the addictiveness of the drug. This vaccine sounds more like it'll just accelerate the time between a junky's first hit and them dying of an overdose.
Maybe we should take the RIAA approach and have "vote with your wallet" mean buying off Senators?
j/k
Sorry, I did miss your point. I think I mostly missed it precisely *because* politicians keep trying to ban guns because they "might" hurt people. I'm sorry that I mistook your comment.
Explosive decompression is pretty clearly a myth (Mythbusters did most of a 60 minute show on it clearly showing that the pressure difference between 30,000ft and 0ft isn't enough to cause massive holes in the airplane). The only real threat is depressurizing of the cabin for which a relatively rapid decent and emergency landing could resolve the conflict with few to no fatalties associated with oxygen depravation. Planes have even been known to land when bombs have blown huge holes in the side. That's not to say that an unlikely set of circumstances couldn't make a lone gunman capable of taking down a plane before someone else with a gun is able to stop them, but even killing pilot and copilot is no real guarantee that the plane can't be landed by someone instructing over radio/phone/whatever.
Why would you be in jail? Like I said, possessing a gun on a flight is a *private* matter. The airline is a private company. You're a private entity. Your possessing or not possessing a gun on a flight is up to a contract between you and said airline. The government should neither require that no one may carry a gun on a flight nor should they be doing the security work of private airlines (hell, they shouldn't be loaning airlines gobs of money just because they're failing). If you happen to violate some ground law over the airspace of some country (say, shooting people), then you can go to jail. But most countries have a concept of self-defense as a legal defense for shooting someone.
Maybe it's just Congress' way of telling Intel, et al they need to donate more. It'd be interesting if MS sued the Republican/Democrat parties for racketeering (MS lobbying went from ziltch to a tidy sum, then the case collapsed nicely). Maybe Intel, et al can sue for racketeering for the same reason. Or maybe they can sue the RIAA, et al as they're the actual puppet masters.
Did he say that guns should be illegal? The whole "don't carry guns" thing is really a private matter for which airlines can just blacklist you for flying with a gun, if they wish. And those where you can carry a gun, there might be a few more dead hijackers instead of a lot of hostages. But, who knows..
Just to expand on the point, I really wish that copyright was renamed (copy&distribute)right, as it's clearly okay to just copy (fair use) or distribute (first sale). Further evaluation of "copyright" actually leaves me wondering if in the US one is copyright infringing by receiving an illicitly distributed copyrighted work or if only the sender is the infringer. It is, after all, the copy&distribution that's covered, not the possession.
Or:
1. Publish your mainboard BIOS as Open Source
2. Wait for people to compile their own BIOS
3. Go out of business because the boot-block bios allows reflashing to a sane bios rather trivially
It's in everyone's best interest but AMI and Phoenix that BIOSs go free source. I'm still waiting for Intel or a major OEM to do it.
They're called OEMs. They sell millions of PCs with millions of motherboards containing millions of BIOSs. Cutting out the cost of paying for a BIOS for every PC might only be a few pennies, but multiply that by the millions of PCs sold and there's clearly cost savings possible (to put it another way, whatever money BIOS makers are making as profit could be shifted to the OEMs). Of course, each OEM would probably prefer just buying out all the BIOS makers and crushing all the competitors, but since that's not very probable to occur, the next cheapest thing is to make a FSS "BIOS" (a closed source one would mean taking the entire burden of production of code which might cost more than the savings of using one's own BIOS; the same might be true for FSS, but there's at least the likely probability that other OEMs will take your BIOS, modify it, and then be either forced to offer the source (ie, free source upgrades) with the BIOS or be sued into oblivion for copyright infringment). I'd guess the only thing really stopping OEMs is that none are willing to take the risk.
I think his point that possessing missile launchers, dead [human?] babies, or crack cocaine are illegal period. The only reason said MOD chips are illegal is because of their ability to modify a PS2. To put it more analogous, it'd be like banning diesal-converters in California because most car owners who did use such a modification would make a car that violates admission standards.
But, diesal-converters aren't inherently dangerous or disrespectful of human life. It just seems to most people that the law is being interpreted in a way to advantage some (Sony, who can now go after all MOD chip makers which should hopefully decrease piracy) over others (all the people using the MOD chips, for illegal or legal purposes). It seems silly to make illegal what can be used for legal purposes solely because a group doesn't like it.
It's not like Sony couldn't track down mod chip buyers and sue them individually if it believes they're violating copyright. That's the way the UK (and US) system is supposed to work, where you're guilty only after doing something wrong (I don't see how you can say the MOD chips themselves are wrong). Of course, the same could be argued about the missile launcher and the crack cocaine. People should be able to own nukes, even. As for the dead babies, I'm hard pressed to say how that their use in any way is itself harmful; I don't see how one could acquire that many in reasonable state of being under any legal basis, though; if one could though, like I said, I don't see why it should be illegal.
Okay, here's a question that might make a relevant point. Can anyone watch the feeds from these cameras? If it's the government putting up the cameras, it should be everyone who can watch them. And since the government is putting up cameras all over the place in public, doesn't that mean citizens can do it too? Right now, I doubt there's anything to stop you from doing it except that you'd need your own security force to prevent it being stolen. But if the government tracks and punishes violators who steal/break their cameras, isn't it reasonable to expect them to do the same with your cameras as well (I say this under the basis that it's public land and that means it's under the jurisdiction of the government to watch over)? The problem isn't so much that cameras mean a lack of privacy, it's that the government are singularly the watchers and deciders on camera placement. If everyone could do it, we'd be back to anonymity through sheer bulk of information.
Photography is clearly work-for-hire. A more valid comparison would be a programmer hired to write up a program in VB or Delphi who gives the company the binary that they're allowed to copy, modify, etc while keeping the copyright on the source. I don't think any sane company would agree to such an arrangement. Yes, a photographer or programmer has the right to demand such things, but the buyer can demand anything he wants; I and many people here realize that amateurs are probably more likely to be flexible in such demands because they don't plan on using the copyright on high quality source as a "racket" to gain more money in the future. Photographers are paid to take pictures. If people want more work from the photographer (like further development work), it should be their choice, not a legally enforced condition (okay, technically they *could* hire anyone to work on the binary/low quality prints, but that's a pretty unreasonable condition). I would guess it more market efficient to have the photography and development jobs separate.
No, but there are tons of free* Windows accounts for to use. I've heard the figure at millions.
*Cost does not include any lawyer fees or jail time associated with the use of said Windows accounts.
Everyone knows Janus grows up/is growing up/will grow up to be Magus, and we know how much of a prick he turned out to be. Do we expect MS's system to turn out any different or do you blame it all on time travel?
I concur. Wasn't cable supposed to be no advertisements? Hell, movie theaters and DVDs *both* have advertisements (and even product placements, which is a more subliminal form of advertisement). You get to pay for the privilege of giving the makers even more money. It's ironic to me that more TV stations don't just stream shows with commercials online for the extra money. Hell, they could even allow for d/ling with some DRM to count how many times you watch the slow. And then you can buy the DVD with the commercials included and you'll see the same thing. Of course with a *truly* wired home, advertisers could start paying based on buy-through on what people purchase through their TV. Ain't the future grand?
when Bill Maher called US pilots "cowards"
When did Bill Maher said this? If you're refering the infamous comment he made on "Politically Incorrect", he said that the terrorists who flew the planes on 9/11 *weren't* cowards. He, and I agree with this, said that it takes some "balls" (not his words, exactly, but the gist of what he was saying) to fly a plane into a building knowing full well it means you're going to die. And I point this out because it seems what he said has been twisted around a lot then passed along (sort of like the game "telephone"). Even if he *had* said something outright infuriating to me, I'd still not think to censor him. You only censor people you're either afraid are telling the truth or have enough influence to lie that people won't believe the truth when later presented with it. It's moronic then that the government wants to censor Howard Stern, yet Bush can keep on lying while his supports (e.g. Fox News) deny any chance he is wrong.
That's like saying the oil monopoly wasn't a monopoly because there's always the sun as an energy source or there's sugar as an energy source. There's no perfect substitute for oil/gasoline, nor is there any perfect substitute for StorageTek's IP. By definition, copyright is all about having monopolistic control over a good. Oligarchies can form because of good substitutes, but that's it. In this case, StorageTek doesn't have a monopoly over tape drives, but they do have a monopoly over the software written for said tape drive. And they're using said monopoly to gain control in another market.
Selling aluminum really, really cheap is in itself nothing. It's only when the company has the means through one monopoly (say oil production) to undercut aluminum manufacturers thus extending their monopolistic control into another market that it's abuse. Only selling below the cost of production is by itself foolish behavior that'll run a company into the ground. You'll notice this means that non-monopolies (say Pepsi) can undersell aluminum without violating anti-trust laws.
The only real thing I guess you could claim is that there is no market for IP to StorageTek's product, therefore there isn't a market for them to be a monopoly in. But I'd say, it's their control over the inclusion of software with their hardware that makes no market exist. But I guess there's always room to quibble over if they're monopoly enough to be covered under anti-trust laws.
StorageTek is using their monopoly power over their IP to gain market share in the maintenance of their IP (production and maintenance are clearly two different markets; just ask clothes manufacturers and cleaners (and imagine Levi suing cleaning places for cleaning Levi clothing without permission)). This sounds like an abuse of a monopoly to me.
PS: I realize you were answering the specific point about monopolies in themselves not being illegal. I just wanted to add my 2 cents about this case.
If the DMCA is only there to punish people who are already breaking the law, for what use is the DMCA? The DMCA is simply an overbroadening of "IP" rights which clearly go against fair use (exceptioning for fair use nullifies the extended reach of the DMCA which makes the DMCA pointless). The point, however, is to have a legal basis to harrass companies and quiet those without the financial resources to defend themselves. When will a company be countersued for racketeering for suing under the DMCA? Maybe then companies will stop suing under the DMCA.
Yes, it is "Year of Hell" that the Krenim Imperium Time Ship is going about causing temporal incursions and removing from history rival species. There is some indication in "Relativity" that Braxton's future self, who is the cause of the temporal bomb, has some grudge against Janeway and all the temporal havoc he's had to clean-up because of her. He talks of "Three violations that I had to repair!" which I assume include the "Year of Hell" incident. So, it's possible that the time ship Relativity will fix all of Enterprise in the end, but it seems all a bit crazy, round-about way of telling a story that will never exist.