If your society treats government-enforced monopolies over ideas as more important than free speech, your society is diseased. Almost every country in the world is afflicted with a very serious disease.
It's not just an enforced monopoly, it's protection against freeloading looters who, without the law around, will smash store windows and steal stuff without paying. What serious disease are you talking about? The disease of wanting to get paid for ones work?
Okay, what if MS or Oracle were the big company in this scenario? Lawyers charge between $250 and $500 per hour. So imagine the small company loses and has to pay these lawyer costs.
This law is partially stupid. Why was a troll patent issued in the first place? It was because the USPTO has few resources. But before going to trial, can't the USPTO do a 2nd detailed review and eliminate any troll patent based on complaints from the defendants? Note troll patents are those patents that are trivial changes to prior art. So it should not take much effort to invalidate it if the defendant has some evidence of prior art.
I thought the bill that made losers pay was recently rejected. So how did the judge make this ruling?
Those are passive enablers of piracy. By that logic, everything a pirate uses is responsible for piracy, including food, water, books, schools, hospitals, tables, chairs, houses. Take any of these away, and piracy will die or be seriously impaired.
Regardless of any feelings about the ludicrousness of IP in the first place, the USERS are the violators, not the site operators,
Read this entire slashdot thread: TBP was created by pirates and hackers based in new mexico. If you removed all the pirated content from TBP, the site would die a quick death as it has no other purpose as I explained in my previous post. You call me dense but fail to address even a single concern in my previous post. My every point that's against your argument is conveniently ignored. So what's the point of debating?
( or anyone else that happens to be in the chain, like the ISPs, routers and computer manufacturers, the OS providers,.. ).
Those things have legitimate uses and its sellers are not actively involved in enabling piracy, unlike TPB. TPB and its protocol were explicity designed to circumvent current copyright laws. Can you say the same about these products you complain about? You sound like a hardcore pirate. Let me repeat this so it can enter your thick skull: There is very little non-copyrighted content that is worth downloading. If certain content is valuable and free, there are tons of sites providing it for free or a fee, so there's no need for TBP other than exchanging pirated content.
Compared to the original idea of copyright (about 7 years), it means that unlike other craftrsmen, artists, musicians etc. are free to decide they are making money at a high enough rate, and stop working
The 7 years rule seems completely arbitrary and the original crafters of copyright laws probably underestimated how useful and in-demand copyrighted materials would become.
resulting in the majority of content being produced by incompetent new-comers and one-hit wonders, while the experienced and actually skilled people stop producing.
I don't think forcing people to work is good for producing creative works and besides, successful artists spend years, even decades creating new works.
It seems quite unfair that some people seem to hold infinite time rights to enjoy and profit from their stuff, like real estate ownership, the right to collect taxes, etc. whereas artists lose control over stuff they created themselves, not borrowed from nature. I think this is theft, by use of law -- the ruling class stealing from the creative class.
TPB operators were not doing this anyway, their USERS were.
Reread my previous comment a few times then. Without knowing where the files are, the users can't copy anything. This site is actively enabling copyright infringement. The TPB owners know what's going on -- heck 99% of the site is links to pirated digital goods. The whole purpose of the site is to enable piracy and they do it like a bunch of of evil geniuses -- they don't host the pirated data. So according to the (current) laws, they have not committed a crime. That's why the laws need to be updated.
And since you are most likely a idiot, ill repeat myself, yet again: TPB operators are not responsible for their user's content.
Sure they are if their whole site and the bittorrent protocol is designed to only pirate stuff. There is very little non-copyrighted content that is worth downloading because creating anything anyone cares about takes years and years of effort and no one does that for free. Only greedy, evil idiots like yourself want everything to be free -- to not compensate the people creating stuff for you.
Free speech only applies to speech created by yourself. It's not an excuse to obtain other people's works without payment.
If TPB was storing said 'infringing' files, then we could have a discussion about their legal status in the matter. But they were not, so we wont.
Stranger C copies a digital product from stranger S. C has not paid for the product so he's committing copyright infringement (so is S). The only way C knows S has the files he wants is through TPB. Just as you can't read a file on your hard disk without knowing its full/relative path name, C can't obtain the files without knowing where they are stored. So advertising and providing the location of copyrighted files, is likely or should be considered a copyright infringement crime -- this needs be in the laws.
So content creators are stealing from themselves? Is that theft? That's too funny.
What's the rationale for a finite copyright period? What would happen if copyrights were extended to infinite years? Unlike patents, copyrights don't prevent others from creating new creative works.
Too bad the general public is too apathetic to see how completely retarded patenting a common mathematical symbol is when the dam thing has been in use for THOUSANDS of years prior.
This is about trademarks, not patents.
You're ignorant thinking that trademarks have a limited lifespan -- they are forever.
Should MS get a cut because your app is generated (derived) by the Visual Studio compiler/linker?
Look up what derivative works are in the context of copyright law. You clearly have no idea.
Every time you use a loop, call a function or declare a variable etc., the compiler replaces that with its own copyrighted machine code that you did not write. Your executable is a patchwork of copyrighted code from the compiler.
Are they demanding ad revenue from non-Nintendo (ie 3rd party) games? That would require are more interesting legal theory if true.
Many developers have previously stated their intention to allow YouTube users to upload videos relating to their games, without any kind of charge, express permission or revenue-sharing deal.
Entire job categories will soon be wiped out. Taxi drivers will go first, followed by truckers.
Don't forget car manufacturers. People buy cars and use them for only 1 to 2 hours a day, typically. We don't share cars right now because other drivers may abuse it. With driverless cars, you can't abuse the engine easily, so sharing cars makes sense economically. Almost anyone would be able to afford a 2 hours/day timeshare from a shared pool of thousands of cars for $500/year.
Whether a human or self-driving car hits a victim or his property does not matter, the payment to the victim will be the same if the driver is at fault. Any payment higher than $25K or $50K will come out of the driver's pocket.
Say the settlement to the victim is $50K. The insurance company pays $25K and the driver pays $25K if a human were driving the car and was at fault. For a self driving car, the insurance company would have to pay the whole $50K since the human driver, who is actually a passenger, is not at fault. He just entered the destination address in the GPS and hit the start/drive button. Since the insurance company has to pay the extra $25K, the driver premiums will be a lot higher (unless Google pays the difference).
An insurance company will compensate you.
Where do you think the insurance company gets its money? From the driver; his premiums will be a lot higher paying for self-driving car's bugs. So why should the driver pay extra premium for Google's bugs? Google should pay some of that premium too. The premium Google pays should be dependent on how many bugs its AI has.
Its clearly a derivative work; and when published to the internet with ad revenue attched to it, then it becomes a commercial 'for profit' derivative work.
So, should Adobe get a cut of the profit you made from selling your photo just because you used Photoshop to create it? Should MS get a cut because your app is generated (derived) by the Visual Studio compiler/linker? Of course, not.
Trademarks and copyrights for third-party games and characters are owned by the companies that market or license those products.
According to their copyright page, Nintendo does not own the copyright to these games, so how can they demand ad-revenue?
Nintendo has always been very controlling of it's property.
Oh, really? The games don't belong to Nintendo. That's like saying Photoshop belongs to Intel, Apple or Microsoft just because it runs on Windows or OSX platforms.
Many developers have previously stated their intention to allow YouTube users to upload videos relating to their games, without any kind of charge, express permission or revenue-sharing deal.
The actual owners of the games don't want any revenue, they're just happy to get some free publicity. Nintendo is money-grubbing here, charging money for something it doesn't own. In fact, the person who played the game or uploaded the video should be compensated with ad revenue, not Nintendo.
They could not if they wanted to, they do not host any content, remember?
So, would it be legal to have a website that posted contact details (name, contact phone #, email) of assassins for hire? The site owners/creators are not involved in killing anyone, so it should be legal, right?
This "not hosting pirated content, only the location of it" argument is complete lawyeristic bullshit, akin to finding legal loopholes.
And how many times does youtube get sued and gets copyrighted content pulled? Why don't you be a hero and try uploading a recent movie onto youtube and see how long it stays?
Most copyrighted content on youtube is music, which is usually a very low quality reproduction, which is probably why it survives being taken down. Plus the song enjoys free publicity being on youtube.
Simon looks like a prototype... no consumer would touch that thing. The reality is Apple designed the iPhone, without which the smartphone market would not exist today. Apple is pissed at Samsung for copying its phone to the tiniest details and stealing its profits. Unfortunately, the iPhone has many design innovations but not many (strong) patentable innovations which means it's easy prey to companies in the mobile phone field that can clone a phone's design.
I think the tech field needs a combination design patent which is a hybrid of design and utility patents and consists of combining existing technologies in an interesting and unique manner. For example, a smartphone combination patent would claim: touchscreen only UI + rectangular case + fast CPU + lots of RAM + phone functionality. The period of protection would only be 5 to 7 years since it's not as innovative as a utility patent.
To be fair, if the iPhone/iPod touch had not been invented, would any of the Samsung touchscreen smartphones exist in the market today? Please answer honestly.
"R is written by statisticians, for statisticians"
Does R invent new syntactic constructs that make it useful for handling/generating statistical data? So far I've not seen any new syntax in R that warrants creating a new programming language -- it's just a rehash of various scripting languages already available.
From a programmer's perspective, R should just be an easy to use library that you can use in various languages like Python, Julia, Ruby, etc. There's no need to learn new syntax if it's not that new and useful.
Finally they just put up forums and said "screw it" and shut down support all together.
Or, management and the bean counters figured out that forum support costs less then offshore support which costs less than onshore support. So it's business as usual, cutting costs while keeping the product retail price the same or increasing it.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not just an enforced monopoly, it's protection against freeloading looters who, without the law around, will smash store windows and steal stuff without paying. What serious disease are you talking about? The disease of wanting to get paid for ones work?
Okay, what if MS or Oracle were the big company in this scenario? Lawyers charge between $250 and $500 per hour. So imagine the small company loses and has to pay these lawyer costs.
This law is partially stupid. Why was a troll patent issued in the first place? It was because the USPTO has few resources. But before going to trial, can't the USPTO do a 2nd detailed review and eliminate any troll patent based on complaints from the defendants? Note troll patents are those patents that are trivial changes to prior art. So it should not take much effort to invalidate it if the defendant has some evidence of prior art.
I thought the bill that made losers pay was recently rejected. So how did the judge make this ruling?
Those are passive enablers of piracy. By that logic, everything a pirate uses is responsible for piracy, including food, water, books, schools, hospitals, tables, chairs, houses. Take any of these away, and piracy will die or be seriously impaired.
Read this entire slashdot thread: TBP was created by pirates and hackers based in new mexico. If you removed all the pirated content from TBP, the site would die a quick death as it has no other purpose as I explained in my previous post. You call me dense but fail to address even a single concern in my previous post. My every point that's against your argument is conveniently ignored. So what's the point of debating?
Those things have legitimate uses and its sellers are not actively involved in enabling piracy, unlike TPB. TPB and its protocol were explicity designed to circumvent current copyright laws. Can you say the same about these products you complain about? You sound like a hardcore pirate. Let me repeat this so it can enter your thick skull: There is very little non-copyrighted content that is worth downloading. If certain content is valuable and free, there are tons of sites providing it for free or a fee, so there's no need for TBP other than exchanging pirated content.
The 7 years rule seems completely arbitrary and the original crafters of copyright laws probably underestimated how useful and in-demand copyrighted materials would become.
I don't think forcing people to work is good for producing creative works and besides, successful artists spend years, even decades creating new works.
It seems quite unfair that some people seem to hold infinite time rights to enjoy and profit from their stuff, like real estate ownership, the right to collect taxes, etc. whereas artists lose control over stuff they created themselves, not borrowed from nature. I think this is theft, by use of law -- the ruling class stealing from the creative class.
Reread my previous comment a few times then. Without knowing where the files are, the users can't copy anything. This site is actively enabling copyright infringement. The TPB owners know what's going on -- heck 99% of the site is links to pirated digital goods. The whole purpose of the site is to enable piracy and they do it like a bunch of of evil geniuses -- they don't host the pirated data. So according to the (current) laws, they have not committed a crime. That's why the laws need to be updated.
Sure they are if their whole site and the bittorrent protocol is designed to only pirate stuff. There is very little non-copyrighted content that is worth downloading because creating anything anyone cares about takes years and years of effort and no one does that for free. Only greedy, evil idiots like yourself want everything to be free -- to not compensate the people creating stuff for you.
Free speech only applies to speech created by yourself. It's not an excuse to obtain other people's works without payment.
Stranger C copies a digital product from stranger S. C has not paid for the product so he's committing copyright infringement (so is S). The only way C knows S has the files he wants is through TPB. Just as you can't read a file on your hard disk without knowing its full/relative path name, C can't obtain the files without knowing where they are stored. So advertising and providing the location of copyrighted files, is likely or should be considered a copyright infringement crime -- this needs be in the laws.
So content creators are stealing from themselves? Is that theft? That's too funny.
What's the rationale for a finite copyright period? What would happen if copyrights were extended to infinite years? Unlike patents, copyrights don't prevent others from creating new creative works.
This is about trademarks, not patents. You're ignorant thinking that trademarks have a limited lifespan -- they are forever.
Every time you use a loop, call a function or declare a variable etc., the compiler replaces that with its own copyrighted machine code that you did not write.
Your executable is a patchwork of copyrighted code from the compiler.
Apparently, yes. From TFA:
Don't forget car manufacturers. People buy cars and use them for only 1 to 2 hours a day, typically. We don't share cars right now because other drivers may abuse it. With driverless cars, you can't abuse the engine easily, so sharing cars makes sense economically. Almost anyone would be able to afford a 2 hours/day timeshare from a shared pool of thousands of cars for $500/year.
Check out bodily insurance liability (BIL) in this page -- there is only a finite amount your insurance company pays.
So if you cause $200K damage, your insurance pays everything? Which state is this?
Whether a human or self-driving car hits a victim or his property does not matter, the payment to the victim will be the same if the driver is at fault. Any payment higher than $25K or $50K will come out of the driver's pocket.
Say the settlement to the victim is $50K. The insurance company pays $25K and the driver pays $25K if a human were driving the car and was at fault. For a self driving car, the insurance company would have to pay the whole $50K since the human driver, who is actually a passenger, is not at fault. He just entered the destination address in the GPS and hit the start/drive button. Since the insurance company has to pay the extra $25K, the driver premiums will be a lot higher (unless Google pays the difference).
Where do you think the insurance company gets its money? From the driver; his premiums will be a lot higher paying for self-driving car's bugs. So why should the driver pay extra premium for Google's bugs? Google should pay some of that premium too. The premium Google pays should be dependent on how many bugs its AI has.
Maybe not, but the human driver and/or his insurance company will compensate you for his errors. Will Google do the same?
So, should Adobe get a cut of the profit you made from selling your photo just because you used Photoshop to create it? Should MS get a cut because your app is generated (derived) by the Visual Studio compiler/linker? Of course, not.
According to their copyright page, Nintendo does not own the copyright to these games, so how can they demand ad-revenue?
Oh, really? The games don't belong to Nintendo. That's like saying Photoshop belongs to Intel, Apple or Microsoft just because it runs on Windows or OSX platforms.
The actual owners of the games don't want any revenue, they're just happy to get some free publicity. Nintendo is money-grubbing here, charging money for something it doesn't own. In fact, the person who played the game or uploaded the video should be compensated with ad revenue, not Nintendo.
So, would it be legal to have a website that posted contact details (name, contact phone #, email) of assassins for hire? The site owners/creators are not involved in killing anyone, so it should be legal, right?
This "not hosting pirated content, only the location of it" argument is complete lawyeristic bullshit, akin to finding legal loopholes.
And how many times does youtube get sued and gets copyrighted content pulled? Why don't you be a hero and try uploading a recent movie onto youtube and see how long it stays?
Most copyrighted content on youtube is music, which is usually a very low quality reproduction, which is probably why it survives being taken down. Plus the song enjoys free publicity being on youtube.
That would happen if you could prove the Syrian rebels were terrorists.
The torrentz.eu site does more than promote piracy, it enables piracy, by storing pointers to pirated content.
Link, please. I wasn't able find anything any motorola touchscreen released prior to 2007 (iphone release year).
Simon looks like a prototype... no consumer would touch that thing. The reality is Apple designed the iPhone, without which the smartphone market would not exist today. Apple is pissed at Samsung for copying its phone to the tiniest details and stealing its profits. Unfortunately, the iPhone has many design innovations but not many (strong) patentable innovations which means it's easy prey to companies in the mobile phone field that can clone a phone's design.
I think the tech field needs a combination design patent which is a hybrid of design and utility patents and consists of combining existing technologies in an interesting and unique manner. For example, a smartphone combination patent would claim: touchscreen only UI + rectangular case + fast CPU + lots of RAM + phone functionality. The period of protection would only be 5 to 7 years since it's not as innovative as a utility patent.
To be fair, if the iPhone/iPod touch had not been invented, would any of the Samsung touchscreen smartphones exist in the market today? Please answer honestly.
Does R invent new syntactic constructs that make it useful for handling/generating statistical data? So far I've not seen any new syntax in R that warrants creating a new programming language -- it's just a rehash of various scripting languages already available.
From a programmer's perspective, R should just be an easy to use library that you can use in various languages like Python, Julia, Ruby, etc. There's no need to learn new syntax if it's not that new and useful.
Or, management and the bean counters figured out that forum support costs less then offshore support which costs less than onshore support. So it's business as usual, cutting costs while keeping the product retail price the same or increasing it.