The exclusion in the European Patent Convention is only useless because the European Patent Office has chosen to ignore it. OK, I'll be generous, they re-interpreted it into irrelevancy. However those software patents are not enforcable in all EU member states because of local variations in the law. If the CII directive is passed unammended then they will be.
What's to stop them using the "patented algorithms/ideas in other countries like, say, India". The patent lobby is trying to get software patenting everywhere. Europe and the USA may be two of the biggest markets, but don't assume they aren't trying for the rest of the world too.
It won't benefit any country, just the mega corporations, patent parasites, and as always the lawyers.
Electing a partisan official to run elections is worse. Anyway, how would you get rid of a corrupt election official if he can rig his re-election? The only reliable solution is to mandate that whatever the system it has to be fully open and auditable. Anyone that tries to obfuscate the system is doing it for no good reason.
It's basically nothing more then a union between the member states, dictated by the governments/majorities in each country.
This is how it is meant to work. The Council then says that it's legitimacy comes from the ministers being supported by their respective parliaments. However in the case of the CII directive this is not the case. In fact there was active collusion between some ministers and the European Commission about how best to ignore the opposing views of certain member states parliaments. With such an obvious will to oppose democracy one can only guess at what might be inducing them to behave so.
I would fire anyone who's not able to use a keyboard, or doesn't check their input twice, especially when they are responsible for huge amounts of money.
Just how many seconds does a stock trader have to make their trade? The short while it could take to check the input might lead to a loss of profit. Condsidering the level of pressure I'm really surprised this kind of mistake doesn't happen more often. Then again, maybe it does, but doesn't usually make it into the press.
Firstly it's too easy. When anyone can make and broadcast programmes through torrent downloads what is the use of the existing broadcast monopolies? Controlling access to the market place is just as important to the broadcasters as it is to the record and film industries.
Secondly what would be the profits from videos? No one would by the DVDs of TV series when they already have the download. OK, some might, but it would be quite a dent in the extra revenue.
Until the price starts going up because there is no competition. Then they lose, but with no comparison to make they may not realise this.
Of course the "average consumer" probably doesn't get much advantage from shooting raw anyway. Then again it isn't there primarily for the average consumer as what they really want is a box that you can point, press a button, and get a reasonable quality picture. For them JPEG straight from the camera would be more than adequate.
"... or design and popularize with an superior alternative file format". Which Adobe are trying to do. Unfortunately it needs to be built into the camera firmware to make any difference. If not you still need to convert to it from NEF. How many people think that Nikon will do this so that NEF format can be bypassed? Not really likely is it.
Let's see what kind of DMCA based argument Nikon might be able to use. You say that "the DMCA protects from unauthorized access from copyrighted works" which is its claimed intention.
So let's look at the copyright issue. The image you create is your copyright, no question. However we're not talking about that, but the white balance data. This is generated by the firmware based on data provided by and copyright of Nikon. That makes it a derivative work and so also subject to their copyright. Based on that Nikon could make a DMCA case, since the data has been encrypted. Is that something you'd be willing to defend in court?
Then there's another possible problem. I haven't read through the full DMCA, but the problem is this. Who has authority to grant the right to break encryption? While it plainly should be the copyright owner legal matters are rarely as straightforward as they should be.
However with a Canon, even my EOS 300D, it's possible to get most or all of the software, including RAW format and remote capture, for no extra cost. It's even possible to download their Digital Photo Professional software which is the same as is provided with their pro models. The problem is that it's only for MS Windows only, but then that's no worse than Nikon. Any extra cost Nikon force on you should really be considered as part of the price of the camera. Of course Nikon wouldn't want you to think about that as it would impact on the competitiveness of their pricing.
Actually consumers will lose the right to use any software not officially sanctioned by Nikon. In fact it could end up with only Nikon software being able to access the image files at all.
Hence, making the poster boy of Open Source appear to be a strong supporter of intellectual property rights.
So, are you suggesting that Linus Torvalds supports software patents? Or perhaps patents on protocols and file formats? At the very least you're saying it could be made to look that way. That really would be ammunition for companies like Microsoft.
it's actually so successful even now that the British government is making them remove huge chunks of it because it's anti competitive.
Or to put it another way, some companies want to provide a lower quality service while charging a high price for it. At the moment they can't get away with this.
This doesn't even begin to address the "little" problem of finding all the codes owners. Unlike commercial software there is no central ownership of code by a single entity such as a company, so you'd need to track down all of them. Also don't forget that a number of coders may have a political preference for GPL over BSD licenses, so their code may have to be removed or replaced. This will often be impractical or even impossible where this code has been used as the basis for other code. You'd have to do this if you just couldn't find them too.
You are also assuming there would be an overwhelming advantage to switching to GPLv3, this doesn't seem likely to me. Even if there were the code may be able to be switched to it anyway as it would still be a GPL license. I doubt there would be any great problem if this wasn't possible anyway as it's current GPL version is quite adequate.
It it quite obvious you have no idea of the scale of the problem of tracking down all the owners and getting their consent.
"Just buy the copyright of all code"? I suppose you could try if you liked. Firstly you'd have to track down all the contributors, or their heirs and assignees. Then you'd have to convince all these owners to accept your offer. Then assuming that, amongst all the others Linus Torvalds and Alan Cox, agreed you would could do what you say. No, it isn't going to happen is it?
Microsoft reps sometimes point to Linux distributions and ask why they can get away with shipping stacks and stacks of applications without getting in trouble. The answer to that one, of course, is that the Linux distributions give you a choice. You aren't locked into one particular application.
More importantly they are all, in fact, third party applications. Even the Linux kernel itself is. The Microsoft "equivalent" would be to include only their own software so as to exclude third party software. I'm sure everyone remembers how they have fought to exclude third party software from their own CDs and from OEM machines with their OSs pre-installed.
Yes, you can see it and look at it, the idea anyway, but you can't touch it. You can't even do anything like it because that would be illegal. In fact you may not be able to do anything remotely like it, unless you have the money to defend a patent based legal action.
Patents these days seem mostly be to exclude competitors and profit from the obvious and pre-existing.
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Don't try to make this into a party political issue. The Tories are at least as pro software patenting as Labour have been.
There is another possibility. The press know they have been duped and don't dare admit it publically.
The exclusion in the European Patent Convention is only useless because the European Patent Office has chosen to ignore it. OK, I'll be generous, they re-interpreted it into irrelevancy. However those software patents are not enforcable in all EU member states because of local variations in the law. If the CII directive is passed unammended then they will be.
What's to stop them using the "patented algorithms/ideas in other countries like, say, India". The patent lobby is trying to get software patenting everywhere. Europe and the USA may be two of the biggest markets, but don't assume they aren't trying for the rest of the world too.
It won't benefit any country, just the mega corporations, patent parasites, and as always the lawyers.
A couple of points. Which we is you? France or Holland? I know I haven't read any of the proposed constitution, did you? How much?
Electing a partisan official to run elections is worse. Anyway, how would you get rid of a corrupt election official if he can rig his re-election? The only reliable solution is to mandate that whatever the system it has to be fully open and auditable. Anyone that tries to obfuscate the system is doing it for no good reason.
You can't patent that! Even the USPTO would have to recognise there is far too much prior art.
Not likely to happen in the short term.
Firstly it's too easy. When anyone can make and broadcast programmes through torrent downloads what is the use of the existing broadcast monopolies? Controlling access to the market place is just as important to the broadcasters as it is to the record and film industries.
Secondly what would be the profits from videos? No one would by the DVDs of TV series when they already have the download. OK, some might, but it would be quite a dent in the extra revenue.
Until the price starts going up because there is no competition. Then they lose, but with no comparison to make they may not realise this.
Of course the "average consumer" probably doesn't get much advantage from shooting raw anyway. Then again it isn't there primarily for the average consumer as what they really want is a box that you can point, press a button, and get a reasonable quality picture. For them JPEG straight from the camera would be more than adequate.
"... or design and popularize with an superior alternative file format". Which Adobe are trying to do. Unfortunately it needs to be built into the camera firmware to make any difference. If not you still need to convert to it from NEF. How many people think that Nikon will do this so that NEF format can be bypassed? Not really likely is it.
Perhaps some lawyer thought it might be used as the basis for an equal opportunities lawsuit.
Let's see what kind of DMCA based argument Nikon might be able to use. You say that "the DMCA protects from unauthorized access from copyrighted works" which is its claimed intention.
So let's look at the copyright issue. The image you create is your copyright, no question. However we're not talking about that, but the white balance data. This is generated by the firmware based on data provided by and copyright of Nikon. That makes it a derivative work and so also subject to their copyright. Based on that Nikon could make a DMCA case, since the data has been encrypted. Is that something you'd be willing to defend in court?
Then there's another possible problem. I haven't read through the full DMCA, but the problem is this. Who has authority to grant the right to break encryption? While it plainly should be the copyright owner legal matters are rarely as straightforward as they should be.
However with a Canon, even my EOS 300D, it's possible to get most or all of the software, including RAW format and remote capture, for no extra cost. It's even possible to download their Digital Photo Professional software which is the same as is provided with their pro models. The problem is that it's only for MS Windows only, but then that's no worse than Nikon. Any extra cost Nikon force on you should really be considered as part of the price of the camera. Of course Nikon wouldn't want you to think about that as it would impact on the competitiveness of their pricing.
Actually consumers will lose the right to use any software not officially sanctioned by Nikon. In fact it could end up with only Nikon software being able to access the image files at all.
Hence, making the poster boy of Open Source appear to be a strong supporter of intellectual property rights. So, are you suggesting that Linus Torvalds supports software patents? Or perhaps patents on protocols and file formats? At the very least you're saying it could be made to look that way. That really would be ammunition for companies like Microsoft.
Just checked on www.uspto.gov and it says they have 4345. Results of Search in 1976 to present db for: AN/"sun microsystems": 4345 patents.
Perhaps he thinks he can get a patent on the idea.
This doesn't even begin to address the "little" problem of finding all the codes owners. Unlike commercial software there is no central ownership of code by a single entity such as a company, so you'd need to track down all of them. Also don't forget that a number of coders may have a political preference for GPL over BSD licenses, so their code may have to be removed or replaced. This will often be impractical or even impossible where this code has been used as the basis for other code. You'd have to do this if you just couldn't find them too.
You are also assuming there would be an overwhelming advantage to switching to GPLv3, this doesn't seem likely to me. Even if there were the code may be able to be switched to it anyway as it would still be a GPL license. I doubt there would be any great problem if this wasn't possible anyway as it's current GPL version is quite adequate.
It it quite obvious you have no idea of the scale of the problem of tracking down all the owners and getting their consent.
"Just buy the copyright of all code"? I suppose you could try if you liked. Firstly you'd have to track down all the contributors, or their heirs and assignees. Then you'd have to convince all these owners to accept your offer. Then assuming that, amongst all the others Linus Torvalds and Alan Cox, agreed you would could do what you say. No, it isn't going to happen is it?
Yes, you can see it and look at it, the idea anyway, but you can't touch it. You can't even do anything like it because that would be illegal. In fact you may not be able to do anything remotely like it, unless you have the money to defend a patent based legal action.
Patents these days seem mostly be to exclude competitors and profit from the obvious and pre-existing.