Slavery, monarchy, and arranged marriages were much older institutions that ended.
Big LOL on equating slavery to patent rights. The patent holders are the ones getting screwed by a tiny amount of monopoly time granted to make money off their invention -- just 20 years. If you subtract the time taken from patent filing date to bringing the product to market, including marketing, say 4-5 years, the monopoly is only for 15 years. And the first 3-5 years, you won't have much sales because nobody has heard of your product. So the effective monopoly is only for 10-13 years, not a long time.
There are plenty of very ordinary businesses like furniture sales and fast food franchises that make money for decades.
So how exactly are patents free gifts? Take cars for instance. The total revenue from new cars in the US alone is tens of billions, yearly. But because of poor patent laws that grant you monopoly only during the initial phases of the selling an invention, when sales of cars were relatively low, the inventor of cars gets nothing, whereas the patent freeloading capitalists, who wait until someone else has worked to make a product popular, then enter the market and seize control of the market share by outspending the little guys, and make all the money for centuries and kick the inventors out of the market.
In fact, like copyrights, inventors should get an additional 20 years where they can charge a 1% sales royalty to companies manufacturing products that use their invention. The start date of royalty should be chosen by the inventor. If the sold product uses multiple patents, the royalty is split among the patent holders.
This is a very subjective matter -- what one considers a valid patent, another considers it obvious and invalid patent.
Instead of courts attacking patent holders (trolls), the USPTO should set clear guidelines as to what is patentable and what is not. Once they invalidate patents that have obvious claims, the trolling and racketeering will end. This is not an easy task (determining obvious vs non-obvious claims), but it must be done.
Maybe you count them by machine but you always have the fallback of machine counting.
Perhaps you meant "fallback of human counting." For simplicity: 1. The voter selects a candidate on a touch-screen tablet. 2. The tablet prints out the vote selection on a piece of paper. This ensures a valid vote has been cast by the voter. 3. Voter deposits paper into a box along with other votes. 4. A computer with a scanner rapidly scans the paper votes after the box is emptied into the counting machine. 5. Humans manually recount votes using paper votes if any discrepancy in the vote count is found.
The TL;DR version is use printers to cast machine-readable paper votes.
Isn't this what open source is all about, freedom? So take the source code and remove the data-collecting code and recompile. Otherwise, what good is open source?
if you're allowed on the movie set, allowed to take pictures there.. no contract was made and the pictures are not a work for hire.
But will any movie studio allow strangers to capture video of all their movie scenes on their set and then release that (edited) video for free or commercial use? I highly doubt it. Such a video would dilute/harm the value of the movie released by the studio.
I think the school's argument is along similar lines. The school has to pay to rent, maintenance and other fees to organize the sporting event at the stadium. It also has to pay long term for coaches/trainers, training area and equipment to train its football player students. So it's a huge cost in time and money to organize this event.
All the kid did was spend a few hours taking pictures with a cheap camera and make oodles of money off someone else's work -- therefore he's a leech.
but has a restriction on the use of photographs taken at a sporting event and subsequently used for commercial gain ever been tested in court?
Why restrict the question to sporting events when there are already general guidelines for photographing strangers (athletes in this case)?
What you can't do
Use photos of people to sell a product without their permission. This is called commercial use. That usually means that if I am identifiable in your photo, you will need my permission to use it in your marketing or advertising. ...
How will you get my permission? The industry standard says you get a signed release. Most releases will grant permission to use a subject's likeness in commercial applications, not to mention a broad range of other uses.
the rights to it are a separate matter from recording real life events.
Here are the restrictions for cameras at the Olympics:
Large photographic and broadcast equipment over 30cm in length, including tripods and monopods. You cannot use photographic or broadcast equipment for commercial purposes unless you hold media accreditation.
IOW, there are restrictions against taking commercial quality photos/videos at many/most sporting events, unless you pay or get permission.
So a shopping mall would be a public place under our law.
Interesting... So under this law, you can go into all mall shops, take pictures of their products on shelves, and post that on the internet without the shop owners going all "school principal" on you?
That's like saying a bootlegger goes into a movie theater, records a movie with his smartphone/video recorder and sells it at a price he likes. And that's perfectly legal, according to you.
In this analogy, Student = bootlegger Athletes = actors in movie School = copyright owner/producer of movie
I think copyright should be shared between the school and the individual athletes. After all, the school organized and funded (invested) these events. But the principal claiming 100% copyright on the events is a total greedy grab.
That doesn't work. Oregon can't tax the miles you drive outside Oregon--the US Constitution explicitly forbids state taxation of anything outside the state.
That's easy... set up interstate toll gates that record odometer reading when you leave the state and another reading recorded when you enter the state.
total yearly odometer distance - out of state distance from toll readings = Oregon miles
Then pay taxes based on the Oregon miles. No need for big brother GPS.
If cost is an issue, the state it could do it piece-by-piece. Say, do it for 5-10% of the roads every time it lays down new asphalt. The money saved over time can help quickly make all city roads concrete.
The solution is exceedingly simple. Don't use a regular socket to charge electric cars. Instead use a special metered socket that only cars can use, not other appliances like computers or refrigerators. That way, you can add a "gas/road" tax based on kWh charged by a car. It's very similar to the current gas tax.
Road wear is often estimated as the fourth power of axle weight. So I imagine the final regulation will include road wear as a factor.
Why do they waste money re-laying asphalt roads every few years? That's a huge waste of money lining the pockets of road contractors. If they built concrete roads for city streets (not highways because semis can damage concrete roads), they could significantly cut costs and reduce the need for a "gas" tax. Asphalt roads are good for only a year or two, then the bitumen evaporates or gets removed by car tires so it's several years of rough, bumpy rides before new tarring smooths the road temporarily.
By comparison, concrete roads don't wear out so easily, the ride on them is smooth, they last a lot longer, and increase mpg
But the government guys will counter-argue that encryption allows anonymity, which in turn will enable ease of illegal transactions, like on silk road. Of course, weak encryption will discourage future silk roads, but also create a big brother society.
Exactly. Raise min wage --> raise price of goods/services --> raise min wage -->...
You can end this cycle by keeping basic needs at a reasonable cost so that you need to raise minimum wage constantly. Basic needs include housing, electricity, food, clothing, travel, medical services, etc. That is, have a low tier of above services and products anyone min. wage person can afford.
it's that they copied so many designed elements to clone the iPhone, it's stated in the case, and it's obvious by looking at the list, and the items.
Patents are too powerful and copyright too weak to protect from such copycatting. Are the lawmakers sleeping? It's a digital world where companies thrive from intellectual work. Where are the laws to prevent such blatant design copying?
Even if Apple copied Braun, the products are not the same and there are plenty of differences in the design. Whereas Samsung copied iPhone the whole stock and barrel, up from the biggest things down to lowest details. That's called copycatting. Samsung owes its smartphone revenues to Apple and they richly deserve this fine.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.merriam-webster.com...
First Known Use of INCENTIVIZE
1970
Big LOL on equating slavery to patent rights. The patent holders are the ones getting screwed by a tiny amount of monopoly time granted to make money off their invention -- just 20 years. If you subtract the time taken from patent filing date to bringing the product to market, including marketing, say 4-5 years, the monopoly is only for 15 years. And the first 3-5 years, you won't have much sales because nobody has heard of your product. So the effective monopoly is only for 10-13 years, not a long time.
There are plenty of very ordinary businesses like furniture sales and fast food franchises that make money for decades.
So how exactly are patents free gifts? Take cars for instance. The total revenue from new cars in the US alone is tens of billions, yearly. But because of poor patent laws that grant you monopoly only during the initial phases of the selling an invention, when sales of cars were relatively low, the inventor of cars gets nothing, whereas the patent freeloading capitalists, who wait until someone else has worked to make a product popular, then enter the market and seize control of the market share by outspending the little guys, and make all the money for centuries and kick the inventors out of the market.
In fact, like copyrights, inventors should get an additional 20 years where they can charge a 1% sales royalty to companies manufacturing products that use their invention. The start date of royalty should be chosen by the inventor. If the sold product uses multiple patents, the royalty is split among the patent holders.
This is a very subjective matter -- what one considers a valid patent, another considers it obvious and invalid patent.
Instead of courts attacking patent holders (trolls), the USPTO should set clear guidelines as to what is patentable and what is not. Once they invalidate patents that have obvious claims, the trolling and racketeering will end. This is not an easy task (determining obvious vs non-obvious claims), but it must be done.
It's more invasive and personal than a blackbox. The NTSB wants cameras in cockpits of planes, but the pilots don't want them.
Perhaps you meant "fallback of human counting." For simplicity:
1. The voter selects a candidate on a touch-screen tablet.
2. The tablet prints out the vote selection on a piece of paper. This ensures a valid vote has been cast by the voter.
3. Voter deposits paper into a box along with other votes.
4. A computer with a scanner rapidly scans the paper votes after the box is emptied into the counting machine.
5. Humans manually recount votes using paper votes if any discrepancy in the vote count is found.
The TL;DR version is use printers to cast machine-readable paper votes.
Isn't this what open source is all about, freedom? So take the source code and remove the data-collecting code and recompile. Otherwise, what good is open source?
Even if you pay a monthly subscription, there will always be ads. See cable TV as an example.
Perhaps not directly, but don't they get scholarships?
But will any movie studio allow strangers to capture video of all their movie scenes on their set and then release that (edited) video for free or commercial use? I highly doubt it. Such a video would dilute/harm the value of the movie released by the studio.
I think the school's argument is along similar lines. The school has to pay to rent, maintenance and other fees to organize the sporting event at the stadium. It also has to pay long term for coaches/trainers, training area and equipment to train its football player students. So it's a huge cost in time and money to organize this event.
All the kid did was spend a few hours taking pictures with a cheap camera and make oodles of money off someone else's work -- therefore he's a leech.
Why restrict the question to sporting events when there are already general guidelines for photographing strangers (athletes in this case)?
What you can't do
Use photos of people to sell a product without their permission. This is called commercial use. That usually means that if I am identifiable in your photo, you will need my permission to use it in your marketing or advertising.
...
How will you get my permission? The industry standard says you get a signed release. Most releases will grant permission to use a subject's likeness in commercial applications, not to mention a broad range of other uses.
http://www.photocoachpro.com/h...
Here are the restrictions for cameras at the Olympics:
Large photographic and broadcast equipment over 30cm in length, including tripods and monopods. You cannot use photographic or broadcast equipment for commercial purposes unless you hold media accreditation.
IOW, there are restrictions against taking commercial quality photos/videos at many/most sporting events, unless you pay or get permission.
Interesting... So under this law, you can go into all mall shops, take pictures of their products on shelves, and post that on the internet without the shop owners going all "school principal" on you?
That's like saying a bootlegger goes into a movie theater, records a movie with his smartphone/video recorder and sells it at a price he likes. And that's perfectly legal, according to you.
In this analogy,
Student = bootlegger
Athletes = actors in movie
School = copyright owner/producer of movie
I think copyright should be shared between the school and the individual athletes. After all, the school organized and funded (invested) these events. But the principal claiming 100% copyright on the events is a total greedy grab.
That's easy... set up interstate toll gates that record odometer reading when you leave the state and another reading recorded when you enter the state.
total yearly odometer distance - out of state distance from toll readings = Oregon miles
Then pay taxes based on the Oregon miles. No need for big brother GPS.
If cost is an issue, the state it could do it piece-by-piece. Say, do it for 5-10% of the roads every time it lays down new asphalt. The money saved over time can help quickly make all city roads concrete.
The solution is exceedingly simple. Don't use a regular socket to charge electric cars. Instead use a special metered socket that only cars can use, not other appliances like computers or refrigerators. That way, you can add a "gas/road" tax based on kWh charged by a car. It's very similar to the current gas tax.
Why do they waste money re-laying asphalt roads every few years? That's a huge waste of money lining the pockets of road contractors. If they built concrete roads for city streets (not highways because semis can damage concrete roads), they could significantly cut costs and reduce the need for a "gas" tax. Asphalt roads are good for only a year or two, then the bitumen evaporates or gets removed by car tires so it's several years of rough, bumpy rides before new tarring smooths the road temporarily.
By comparison, concrete roads don't wear out so easily, the ride on them is smooth, they last a lot longer, and increase mpg
If teaching of encryption is a crime, how would someone learn what a one-time pad is?
But the government guys will counter-argue that encryption allows anonymity, which in turn will enable ease of illegal transactions, like on silk road. Of course, weak encryption will discourage future silk roads, but also create a big brother society.
Exactly. ...
Raise min wage --> raise price of goods/services --> raise min wage -->
You can end this cycle by keeping basic needs at a reasonable cost so that you need to raise minimum wage constantly. Basic needs include housing, electricity, food, clothing, travel, medical services, etc. That is, have a low tier of above services and products anyone min. wage person can afford.
Patents are too powerful and copyright too weak to protect from such copycatting. Are the lawmakers sleeping? It's a digital world where companies thrive from intellectual work. Where are the laws to prevent such blatant design copying?
Even if Apple copied Braun, the products are not the same and there are plenty of differences in the design. Whereas Samsung copied iPhone the whole stock and barrel, up from the biggest things down to lowest details. That's called copycatting. Samsung owes its smartphone revenues to Apple and they richly deserve this fine.
It's not straigtforward at all. Why did he accelerate (instead of braking) going into a curve? Was he unaware of the curve ahead or just suicidal?