Well, photocopies are limited to rather short quotes as I understand the law (only a layman).
You are correct about over the air to tape for time shifting, though it's not a right, it's just not illegial. With the broadcast flag, they can prevent that, and it is illegial to circumvent that courtesy of the DMCA.
The CD to tape is actually as I understand it illegial, due to the copy, but not prosecuted because it isn't worth it to the companies.
There's this idea that it's legal to violate copyright law for "personal use", to any extent without distribution. That's not true, the law prohibits copying, it's just that the law has additional penalties for distribution (plantiff can claim more financial damages) and the cost/benefit calculous didn't support filing suits for the companies. They can if they want to though, and you'd likely still lose (unless there was a heck of an activist judge hearing the case).
As to the last part, that's totally irrelevent. And different from the computer example. It's the difference between buying a car for a 10 year old (they can't use it because they can't drive) and buying a car without an engine - no one can use it because it doesn't work as advertised.
When you bought the book, I would imagine most people would have a pretty good idea about what they were getting - a printed text. If you are blind, maybe this isn't the best purchase idea, but the product isn't inherently flawed. Unlike computer code that must be copied to RAM to run.
I'm rather sure you would lose, as you are violating the main point of copyright - making a copy without authorization.
Many misconceptions have come about due to two things - one, software manufacturers tendency in the past to allow via the EULA *one* backup copy of a disc you bought (this is not codified in law, it's actually somewhat of a sales point, like iTunes allowing 5 machines or some such to play one file).
And two, the exception in copyright law to allow a copy to computer RAM/HD as necessary for the software to function. So you don't violate the law by installing a program or running said installed program.
Neither of these is going to cover your suggested actions - your book doesn't have a EULA (AFAIK, no printed books come with a EULA right now) which might grant such additional rights, you likely haven't negoiated with the publisher for additional rights, and the book is published "All Rights Reserved".
Also, the book in original form is perfectly functional as represented and sold, it can be used and read without ever being scanned onto a laptop, even on the road.
Copyright law has no exemptions for convienience - how I wish it did so we could get rid of the user prohibitions on DVDs.
I don't have a problem with drug testing as a condition of employment. I do have a problem with genetic testing.
The former I can control - just don't do drugs. The latter I can't - it's like the Indian caste system, you are lesser based on how you were born. That seems to me to be against the whole concept of fair play of the USA.
Said testing seems to me like it ought to fall under the anti-discrimination laws wrt handicapped people.
(a) - people talk to their cars too, but I'm not out there advocating various car's rights.
(b) - I'm fine with not allowing the creation of embryos for the sole purpose of research. But if they've been created already in fertility clinics for the purpose of procreation or fun or whatever, and now they are being tossed, heck yes - lets get some more use out of them.
Just like I was against AOL mailing out lots of floppies back in the day due to environmental concerns, I had no problem reformatting the ones I got for reuse.
Plus, what is the suggested plan for those unemployable due to genetic tendencies? As far as I can tell, under current laws, you'd basically have to lable it a disability, and you still wouldn't be able to not hire people because of it.
Even if you didn't, and these people just wouldn't be employed, you just have more welfare people... How does this help?
Re:EBooks are a failure... get over it
on
Textbooks With EULAs
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Well, I personally think the REB1100 got it right in UI, but getting books for it is a pain. It's even harder to add user content, which I think is important, I originally bought mine to read fan fiction.
The biggest flop of the whole thing was they wanted to sell the books at hardcover prices. No one bought them.
Paying $130 or even $300 (when they first came out) for the gadget isn't any big deal today - look at iPod costs, laptops or whatever, but you have to have a resonable benefit to buying the ebooks for it. Say an early release (they tried getting people with releases a month before hardcover) but it would also have to be a savings, I'd pay $2.50-$3 per book in electronic form. I'm not paying $25 for a book in electronic form.
For back catalog books it was worse. It was cheaper for me to order the paperback from Amazon and pay shipping than to get the electronic one.
All these companies seem to miss the idea that people have some notion of fair play. If you get less, and it's obvious with the electronic versions you are getting less (no shiny disc or bulky book), then the public will expect a savings equal to whatever they percieve the cost of the physical part is + physical distribution costs.
And to tip it over, it has to actually be less than that, it has to also make up for the hassle of a new method of doing things + any losses of the new format, like loss of resolution, color pictures, or underlining.
That's why I try to look for professors who don't do that. About half of the professors I've had either allow any recent version of the book (say 2 or 3 versions back), don't use a textbook, or use a non-textbook book. Amazing what kind of programming guide you can get for $25 at Barnes and Noble and $18 online that is as good as the $80 textbook! For instance some of the 24hr books are good for coding.
Some of my humanities classes have 2 or 3 regular paperbacks - got to love the $1.50 for Othello! Or $6 for The Age of Spiritual Machines.
The other thing I do is see if I really need the book at all - often you can either not use the book or can share with classmates.
Or, you know, write a script or program to do it for them. Computers are designed to carry out repetitive tasks you know, and tend to do so quite fast.
Well, there's the one issue that with books there's a big analog loophole like there was with music - that is the current standard printed books have 0 DRM, and moreso, unlike music, there is NO WAY to integrate DRM into a printed book I can imagine.
So, anyone can scan in a book, run an OCR program on it, run spell check and be passable. Usually a few people will then read the book and make corrections and you get v1.1 release that is perfectly readable.
Until ebooks replace paper books, this will be viable, and not particularily difficult to do if you don't mind destroying the paper book in the process.
I know, I live out in rural upstate NY. I have netflix, and we always turn around the movies the day after we get them in the summer (My dad is retired and my sister and I on summer break - not a lot to do out here, you figure it out).
We have the 5 out at a time, I got 24 movies last month - at a cost of ~ $1.45 per movie. Not bad really, though of course I'd love to get 5 movies every 3 days, it's not doable with business day processing (totally understandable, netflix is a business, they work mon-fri). And, this is far cheaper than DVD rental costs at local stores - which for us are minimum of 20 miles away. Figure in gas and boom, big savings.
God forbid I hand in something done in InDesign lol. Far far better than Word. Though, getting basic text any word processor will work, but if I want to put in pictures and the like, InDesign all the way.
Thought often required. My sister is going off to pratt, which requires everyone to have a laptop. Their dorm rooms don't even have desks where you might put a desktop - just a drafting table.
Heck, when I went to RIT in 99, for IT, there was no computer requirement - you could use the labs if you preferred. And, often, that was a better choice anyway - less distractions, the software you need is on those PCs so you're not buying lots of expensive software, and the PC works, you're not fighting off software, or those new gfx drivers you installed to play a game or whatever.
Some of this is the lack of natural language processing + a knack for forming good search terms. See the other reply.
Anyway, typing out an english question is almost guaranteed to give bad to horrible search results with any search program I've ever used that wasn't both topic limited and specially designed for that (see Lotus Word Pro ask the expert for instance). Though this new IBM search idea might finally get us there...
This is a big problem I have with google. Does yahoo do a better job now? Is alltheweb gone and now just yahoo search? If so, I need to edit my search.ini:(
I don't know - it doesn't seem to work at all in Opera 8.02 with proxomitron running, wheras mapquest, yahoo and maps24 all work fine. Guess what I use. Maps24 even has a cool interface with smooth scrolling and the like.
I suppose this is rather variable. I live in the southern tier of NY. The USPS is usually perfectly reliable, faster and cheaper for me than UPS or FedEx is.
I can ship a box of DVDs media mail for about $1.50 as far as Philadelphia overnight, or for $5 anywhere in the US in 3 days. I can ship a book overnight to Los Angeles for $13. Compare that to the UPS price of $10 for ground, or $42 for next day air.
The roads here are decent - though we're rural, so they seem to fix the roads far more often than in the cities because less traffic is impacted. Our road is repaved about every 3 years. The road crews even pack down and gravel the dirt roads once a year. The superhighways are also maintained every 5 years or so - and are very smooth.
The bad roads are in the cities, where they never shut them down to repave them. They don't do half the maintenence in the nearby cities they do on our rural roads - which seems stupid to me, but I don't complain, I get no potholes and smooth roads. And for whatever reason, when they want to pave the road out here, they can do a 5 mile stretch in 2 weeks, but in the cities they spend a year working on 2 blocks...
As to government problems, our roadcrews (we know some of the workers being a small town) will do work on roads that are fine because they have to spend their budget or have it cut. That's a problem with the way government budgets are worked out - they never take into account that some years may need $100 for x, whereas as the item decays or whatever, the next year they may need $10,000 for it. And it's much harder to get an increase after having it cut for coming in under budget one year than to just waste the budget so you have the money if you need it next year.
Umm, yes. Your ISP would just have put a browser on your config disc. You know, the CD you get from AOL, Earthlink, Comcast, or whoever you get internet from.
The end user would likely have 0 difference in the install experiance.
Re:I liked Internet Explorer 7 the first time...
on
IE7 Bugs and Reviews
·
· Score: 1
Wish I knew. I just see many people claim they ditched Opera in about a minute from how complex or messy or confusing the interface is.
Yeah, I believe Opera 5 or 6 didn't really support DOM all that well. That's one of the main reasons the company did a complete rewrite of the rendering engine for version 7.
Opera 7 and 8 are much better with complex sites. The worst part though, is that presto (the new engine) has been out for something approaching 3 years. And people both still talk about Opera's lacking DOM support and use scripts that are either 3 + years old or operate on those assumptions.
Believe me, it's as bad as the people who still put down Windows XP like it crashed like Windows 98.
I can understand if something just came out, but jeezus - 3 years? Get with the program...
I think the only reason Opera users care about counting is the same reason FF users would - that is because there are stupid designers/managers who will say only X% of users use this browser, so we'll lock them out.
It's one thing to not support them, but about 60% of sites I see people claim don't work with Opera (on the Opera forums) actually work fine if you change the UA sent. This is just stupid for sites to block on that.
Sure, there are some things you can do in other browsers you can't do in Opera. Fine to not support Opera for rich text blog editing. But don't block out users when the site works fine.
The final point I have is preaching to the converted - but too many sites block for no technical reason. Don't use UA strings for anything because just about any browser can lie.
Slashdot Mirror
You know what will happen? Sites will block access from AdBlock enabled browsers. For an example, see www.environmentalchemistry.com
Well, photocopies are limited to rather short quotes as I understand the law (only a layman).
You are correct about over the air to tape for time shifting, though it's not a right, it's just not illegial. With the broadcast flag, they can prevent that, and it is illegial to circumvent that courtesy of the DMCA.
The CD to tape is actually as I understand it illegial, due to the copy, but not prosecuted because it isn't worth it to the companies.
There's this idea that it's legal to violate copyright law for "personal use", to any extent without distribution. That's not true, the law prohibits copying, it's just that the law has additional penalties for distribution (plantiff can claim more financial damages) and the cost/benefit calculous didn't support filing suits for the companies. They can if they want to though, and you'd likely still lose (unless there was a heck of an activist judge hearing the case).
As to the last part, that's totally irrelevent. And different from the computer example. It's the difference between buying a car for a 10 year old (they can't use it because they can't drive) and buying a car without an engine - no one can use it because it doesn't work as advertised.
When you bought the book, I would imagine most people would have a pretty good idea about what they were getting - a printed text. If you are blind, maybe this isn't the best purchase idea, but the product isn't inherently flawed. Unlike computer code that must be copied to RAM to run.
I'm rather sure you would lose, as you are violating the main point of copyright - making a copy without authorization.
Many misconceptions have come about due to two things - one, software manufacturers tendency in the past to allow via the EULA *one* backup copy of a disc you bought (this is not codified in law, it's actually somewhat of a sales point, like iTunes allowing 5 machines or some such to play one file).
And two, the exception in copyright law to allow a copy to computer RAM/HD as necessary for the software to function. So you don't violate the law by installing a program or running said installed program.
Neither of these is going to cover your suggested actions - your book doesn't have a EULA (AFAIK, no printed books come with a EULA right now) which might grant such additional rights, you likely haven't negoiated with the publisher for additional rights, and the book is published "All Rights Reserved".
Also, the book in original form is perfectly functional as represented and sold, it can be used and read without ever being scanned onto a laptop, even on the road.
Copyright law has no exemptions for convienience - how I wish it did so we could get rid of the user prohibitions on DVDs.
Actually, from what I've read - there was no CGI used in the Dukes of Hazzard car stunts. So it was real. Though, I haven't seen it yet.
I don't have a problem with drug testing as a condition of employment. I do have a problem with genetic testing.
The former I can control - just don't do drugs. The latter I can't - it's like the Indian caste system, you are lesser based on how you were born. That seems to me to be against the whole concept of fair play of the USA.
Said testing seems to me like it ought to fall under the anti-discrimination laws wrt handicapped people.
(a) - people talk to their cars too, but I'm not out there advocating various car's rights.
(b) - I'm fine with not allowing the creation of embryos for the sole purpose of research. But if they've been created already in fertility clinics for the purpose of procreation or fun or whatever, and now they are being tossed, heck yes - lets get some more use out of them.
Just like I was against AOL mailing out lots of floppies back in the day due to environmental concerns, I had no problem reformatting the ones I got for reuse.
Plus, what is the suggested plan for those unemployable due to genetic tendencies? As far as I can tell, under current laws, you'd basically have to lable it a disability, and you still wouldn't be able to not hire people because of it.
Even if you didn't, and these people just wouldn't be employed, you just have more welfare people... How does this help?
Well, I personally think the REB1100 got it right in UI, but getting books for it is a pain. It's even harder to add user content, which I think is important, I originally bought mine to read fan fiction.
The biggest flop of the whole thing was they wanted to sell the books at hardcover prices. No one bought them.
Paying $130 or even $300 (when they first came out) for the gadget isn't any big deal today - look at iPod costs, laptops or whatever, but you have to have a resonable benefit to buying the ebooks for it. Say an early release (they tried getting people with releases a month before hardcover) but it would also have to be a savings, I'd pay $2.50-$3 per book in electronic form. I'm not paying $25 for a book in electronic form.
For back catalog books it was worse. It was cheaper for me to order the paperback from Amazon and pay shipping than to get the electronic one.
All these companies seem to miss the idea that people have some notion of fair play. If you get less, and it's obvious with the electronic versions you are getting less (no shiny disc or bulky book), then the public will expect a savings equal to whatever they percieve the cost of the physical part is + physical distribution costs.
And to tip it over, it has to actually be less than that, it has to also make up for the hassle of a new method of doing things + any losses of the new format, like loss of resolution, color pictures, or underlining.
That's why I try to look for professors who don't do that. About half of the professors I've had either allow any recent version of the book (say 2 or 3 versions back), don't use a textbook, or use a non-textbook book. Amazing what kind of programming guide you can get for $25 at Barnes and Noble and $18 online that is as good as the $80 textbook! For instance some of the 24hr books are good for coding.
Some of my humanities classes have 2 or 3 regular paperbacks - got to love the $1.50 for Othello! Or $6 for The Age of Spiritual Machines.
The other thing I do is see if I really need the book at all - often you can either not use the book or can share with classmates.
Or, you know, write a script or program to do it for them. Computers are designed to carry out repetitive tasks you know, and tend to do so quite fast.
Well, there's the one issue that with books there's a big analog loophole like there was with music - that is the current standard printed books have 0 DRM, and moreso, unlike music, there is NO WAY to integrate DRM into a printed book I can imagine.
So, anyone can scan in a book, run an OCR program on it, run spell check and be passable. Usually a few people will then read the book and make corrections and you get v1.1 release that is perfectly readable.
Until ebooks replace paper books, this will be viable, and not particularily difficult to do if you don't mind destroying the paper book in the process.
I know, I live out in rural upstate NY. I have netflix, and we always turn around the movies the day after we get them in the summer (My dad is retired and my sister and I on summer break - not a lot to do out here, you figure it out).
We have the 5 out at a time, I got 24 movies last month - at a cost of ~ $1.45 per movie. Not bad really, though of course I'd love to get 5 movies every 3 days, it's not doable with business day processing (totally understandable, netflix is a business, they work mon-fri). And, this is far cheaper than DVD rental costs at local stores - which for us are minimum of 20 miles away. Figure in gas and boom, big savings.
There are programs that do that - one such is InDesign - and there are more word prossorey ones too, but you have to look for them.
God forbid I hand in something done in InDesign lol. Far far better than Word. Though, getting basic text any word processor will work, but if I want to put in pictures and the like, InDesign all the way.
Thought often required. My sister is going off to pratt, which requires everyone to have a laptop. Their dorm rooms don't even have desks where you might put a desktop - just a drafting table.
Heck, when I went to RIT in 99, for IT, there was no computer requirement - you could use the labs if you preferred. And, often, that was a better choice anyway - less distractions, the software you need is on those PCs so you're not buying lots of expensive software, and the PC works, you're not fighting off software, or those new gfx drivers you installed to play a game or whatever.
Some of this is the lack of natural language processing + a knack for forming good search terms. See the other reply.
...
Anyway, typing out an english question is almost guaranteed to give bad to horrible search results with any search program I've ever used that wasn't both topic limited and specially designed for that (see Lotus Word Pro ask the expert for instance). Though this new IBM search idea might finally get us there
This is a big problem I have with google. Does yahoo do a better job now? Is alltheweb gone and now just yahoo search? If so, I need to edit my search.ini :(
I don't know - it doesn't seem to work at all in Opera 8.02 with proxomitron running, wheras mapquest, yahoo and maps24 all work fine. Guess what I use. Maps24 even has a cool interface with smooth scrolling and the like.
I suppose this is rather variable. I live in the southern tier of NY. The USPS is usually perfectly reliable, faster and cheaper for me than UPS or FedEx is.
I can ship a box of DVDs media mail for about $1.50 as far as Philadelphia overnight, or for $5 anywhere in the US in 3 days. I can ship a book overnight to Los Angeles for $13. Compare that to the UPS price of $10 for ground, or $42 for next day air.
The roads here are decent - though we're rural, so they seem to fix the roads far more often than in the cities because less traffic is impacted. Our road is repaved about every 3 years. The road crews even pack down and gravel the dirt roads once a year. The superhighways are also maintained every 5 years or so - and are very smooth.
The bad roads are in the cities, where they never shut them down to repave them. They don't do half the maintenence in the nearby cities they do on our rural roads - which seems stupid to me, but I don't complain, I get no potholes and smooth roads. And for whatever reason, when they want to pave the road out here, they can do a 5 mile stretch in 2 weeks, but in the cities they spend a year working on 2 blocks...
As to government problems, our roadcrews (we know some of the workers being a small town) will do work on roads that are fine because they have to spend their budget or have it cut. That's a problem with the way government budgets are worked out - they never take into account that some years may need $100 for x, whereas as the item decays or whatever, the next year they may need $10,000 for it. And it's much harder to get an increase after having it cut for coming in under budget one year than to just waste the budget so you have the money if you need it next year.
Sounds like becoming the borg almost.
Umm, yes. Your ISP would just have put a browser on your config disc. You know, the CD you get from AOL, Earthlink, Comcast, or whoever you get internet from.
The end user would likely have 0 difference in the install experiance.
Wish I knew. I just see many people claim they ditched Opera in about a minute from how complex or messy or confusing the interface is.
I obviously disagree as I am a paying customer.
Yeah, I believe Opera 5 or 6 didn't really support DOM all that well. That's one of the main reasons the company did a complete rewrite of the rendering engine for version 7.
Opera 7 and 8 are much better with complex sites. The worst part though, is that presto (the new engine) has been out for something approaching 3 years. And people both still talk about Opera's lacking DOM support and use scripts that are either 3 + years old or operate on those assumptions.
Believe me, it's as bad as the people who still put down Windows XP like it crashed like Windows 98.
I can understand if something just came out, but jeezus - 3 years? Get with the program...
I think the only reason Opera users care about counting is the same reason FF users would - that is because there are stupid designers/managers who will say only X% of users use this browser, so we'll lock them out.
It's one thing to not support them, but about 60% of sites I see people claim don't work with Opera (on the Opera forums) actually work fine if you change the UA sent. This is just stupid for sites to block on that.
Sure, there are some things you can do in other browsers you can't do in Opera. Fine to not support Opera for rich text blog editing. But don't block out users when the site works fine.
The final point I have is preaching to the converted - but too many sites block for no technical reason. Don't use UA strings for anything because just about any browser can lie.
True, but should "correctly" mean to exclude 10-15% of potential customers either?