Realistically, yes. If that's an outdated, unworkable model given current technology, let it die and something else replace it.
You can't lock down content, with everyone having high powered data copying machines in their living room, and many people having the skill to crack through even the most devious of lockdown schemes. And it only takes breaking it (or running it through the analog hole, or what have you), once.
They've tried with software. They've tried with music. They've tried with movies, consoles, games, what have you, from VHS tapes all the way up to Blu-Rays, from floppies to downloads. And they've tried in a lot of ways, from "Type in the fifth word in the first paragraph of the ninth page..." to the current encryption schemes. And they all fail. And they all will fail. You can't simultaneously give people content and prevent them from viewing it, and you can't prevent someone who's able to view it or hear it from copying it, even if they need a quiet room and a good quality recorder to do so.
This is good. Yes, it's going to cause some headaches for some people. Yes, it's going to require some ingenuity from us as to how we replace the old methods of generating content creation. Yes, it might even make a baby cry somewhere. But disruptive technology is, well, disruptive, and the gains we get from the wide availability and usability of computers is far greater than any drawback.
It's time to sit down and figure out what the future model is. It probably doesn't involve large prices. Most of it probably doesn't involve any prices (perhaps advertising, perhaps people working in their spare time and not needing pay). People have already figured out that they don't have to pay, and whether you like it or not, when you've got a worse (DRM restricted) product, at a higher (not free) price, you're not going to win that one. The only thing you can do is to make your product better and more convenient, at minimal cost.
The end result is probably going to include a lot of collaborative development, in the vein of open source. We've already seen several smash hits this way-anyone familiar with Firefox, or Wikipedia?-and will certainly see more as this model is refined.
In other cases, all-you-can-eat has proved to be a good approach. Netflix is killing video stores with all-you-can-eat, and, well, a large torrent site is a great example of the success of the all-you-can-eat approach, like it or not. Make a convenient, centralized location with a low subscription fee, and allow your customers to (totally legally) download whatever they may like, without having to wait around for a seeder, add some areas where they can discuss the stuff, and you've got a compelling reason for them to pay. Now you're offering more for the money (convenience, easy access, legality), not less (restrictions and DRM the downloaded copies don't have).
And realistically, there probably won't be near as much need for commercial production in this type of thing going forward. You don't need a factory to produce and distribute CDs, you don't need a box to get software. That's already irreversibly changed, and altogether, that change is for the better. Now we've just got to work out this bump. And we do-it does raise a legitimate issue. But in order to do that, we need to get the "content producers" to quit dragging their feet and pretending it's 1985 (and trying to get everyone else to pretend it's 1985), and sit down to figure out how to move forward, not back.
However, with units of measurement, it is critical that they be consistent. An inch is one-twelfth of one foot. A foot is one third of a yard and 1/5280 of a mile. Since the metric system also uses these standards, feet can be converted precisely and accurately to meters, and grams precisely and accurately to ounces.
The problem here is in having the same unit of measurement mean two different things in two different contexts. If an "inch" were one length when measuring fabric, a slightly different length when building a bridge, and different yet again when measuring a person's height, now we've got a confusing situation where one must try to interpret context to determine just how long an "inch" actually is. If you need a unit of measurement for a different context, you develop a new one, you don't give an existing one a different meaning.
The SI units are a good solution to that. It's clear from reading that "KiB" is similar to, but not quite, a kilobyte. A "kilo"- anything is 1000 of that thing. That's a well defined standard, and one we'd do well not to break. But since working with the binary variants is a convenient and logical way to work with a lot of things in the CS/IT field, we need new units of measurement that reflect them.
Luckily, they've already gotten designed. Now they just need to get used. Good on Ubuntu for doing so, and blowing off those who resist beneficial change just because it's change.
However, even that establishes a crucial framework. Copyright is not to "protect authors", to "give them rights", or any such thing. It is to promote progress, and it is only justifiable insofar as it actually, realistically does.
So, for example, retroactively extending copyrights was unjustifiable. One cannot promote progress by further locking down things already made. Letting a piece of copyrighted material go to the public domain in a timely manner, while it is still usable, is also crucial for promoting progress.
I also don't think one can realistically argue that today's massive terms do much more for progress than a ten to twenty year term would.
Free speech is never absolute, and certainly never in a commercial setting. For example, your doctor cannot go post your medical records on a public website. That's free speech, but HIPAA bans it, and I think you'd find arguing that a doctor should be exempt from HIPAA on free speech grounds not to meet the reception you'd expect in court.
In advertising specifically, tobacco and alcohol ads are already restricted. Indeed, a mandate of disclosures (and a requirement that advertising be true) are all allowable restrictions.
And I say this as someone who will ardently defend the freedom of speech, even down to things one finds disgusting or shocking or distasteful. But speech when you're trying to sell something is different altogether. Speech when you're selling something that could have significant risks, ten times so. No constitutional amendment is required here.
That's certainly what I meant, at least. If a drug is safe enough to let people buy it off a grocery store shelf without consulting a doctor, we're talking about a different story. Folic acid, shampoo, and cough medicine are not generally prescription drugs, nor are suicide help hotlines.
You can quite easily run an ad saying "Do you have a giant neck growth? Help may be available for you, consult your doctor!" without advocating a specific treatment.
Quit allowing the advertisement of prescription drugs. The reason that prescription drugs are, well, by prescription, is that they may carry significant risks, and careful evaluation by a professional is required as to whether a patient should take them.
If a patient needs a prescription, let their doctor be the one who gives them their options, based on a full discussion of the risks and benefits of each possible one, and let the patient be the one to decide based on this information. And while we're at it, let's disallow the pharma companies from ever knowing how often a given doctor prescribes their stuff, so that they can't give any type of reward or kickback (they would still, of course, know how often they're prescribed in aggregate).
Medical decisions should be made based upon a detailed discussion with a professional, not a glossy brochure.
The school might get upset, and take disciplinary action, but we're most certainly not talking felony territory here. A felony would be cracking into a system you don't have permission to use at all, or outright stealing a laptop (and even that, in many states, would depend how much the laptop is worth). It's not a felony to use a machine you've been granted permission to use. Now, certainly, if you go outside the scope of how you're supposed to use it, they might take it away and take internal disciplinary action, both of which are within their rights. But I have no idea how you think this is a felony.
That being said, even if it technically is, good on them for being willing to do it. Let your students learn how things work, by tinkering with them (and if need be, learning how to break locks someone attempts to put on your stuff). Give them full admin rights, make it crystal clear that the students (and parents) are fully and solely responsible for what's done with the machine, and wipe and reburn it every time it comes back in to go to a different student. Don't lock everything down all to hell. When I was in school myself, we had unfettered Net access and admin accounts on every machine in the school, because no one knew it was even possible to try to lock a system down. And we learned from it, and the sky didn't fall. The world wouldn't be a worse place for a little less paranoia and a little more tinkering.
"When I was married, we had a difficult time finding a photographer that agreed, and simply didn't do business with those that wanted to be paid for their work, and wanted to keep all rights to said photos for use in promotions and fees for reprints."
Which you immediately point out doesn't seem to hold true in reality.
Dunno about "in reality" when GP was married, but I know of a lot of people annoyed with that, and it apparently has been changing. I'm getting married myself here in a little under 6 months, and one thing we explicitly looked for in a photographer was a full transfer of all rights. I'd say it was about 50/50, the ones who did that as a matter of course vs. those who charged extra for it, and there really wasn't a price differential between the two. So, while it may be conceivable for the photographer to retain all rights, it's apparently caused enough of a loss in business for people to stop it. Certainly lost mine-if I was considering a photographer, and the answer to that question was "We retain all the rights, but you can pay $XXX for them", my response was "Thank you for your time" and an end to the conversation.
I have high quality printing equipment that I'm more than capable of doing my own reprints on, and will also likely put together a quick website for friends/family to visit and get them from. I'm paying the photographer for skill in photography and the time spent using those skills, not to eternally pay more for stuff I'm quite capable of taking over myself from that point onward.
Lest anyone think this is entirely offtopic, the same applies to developers-if the customer pays you to do the initial development, and then moves on to doing support themself or having someone else provide it, just make sure you charge enough for the initial development work that it's worth your time even if that happens. If you're charging based on hopes of something in the future, rather than what you've got the contract for right now, well, that's just foolish and of course you'll find yourself in a tough spot. Deal honestly and squarely with your customers, and you'll find many of them are happy to contract for additional work or continue to request you for consulting. Yank them around, and not only will they never consider you again, but there will be someone else they talk to that will never consider you either-even though you'll never know.
I've never understood billing in that way. I always insist on a contract, or at least memorandum of understanding, be completed before I start work. If you want to contract for the development plus several years' support, I probably will give you some type of "bundle" discount. If you just want the work, and don't want to contract past that, I'll make sure I charge you enough for it that my time and effort in development is worth it, even if you do then decide to seek support elsewhere.
However, I'll actually charge you less if you will agree to the finished product being GPL'd, because I quite often find myself wanting to incorporate GPL code. If you want something proprietary, I'll charge you more, because then I can't do that, and I have to write more and reuse less. In addition, you probably wind up with less rights in the final product. The types of things I do are customized for each person I work with, so I'm not concerned if you redistribute the end product-it's probably of little use to anyone but you anyway.
And because I do deal fairly with people, and don't give them unpleasant surprises, I am often asked for assistance or consulting down the road-who better than the guy who wrote it, if you were happy with him?
I would never, however, set up a contract that asked the customer not to receive the source code at all. I have enough confidence in my work that I'm more than willing to give you the option of going elsewhere if you're not happy. And it's people like the guy asking the very question, above, that make people so damned gun shy about hiring freelancers to start with. (Disclaimer: I'm not freelancing now, but I've done so in the relatively recent past, and I don't think the field could have changed that much between then and now.)
Bullshit. Utter bullshit. You can give the client who wants to switch developers a copy of the source code to allow them to do so, without actually granting them ownership of your supposedly extremely valuable libraries. Write up a contract that says they're only permitted to use them in conjunction with the software you wrote for them (or future modifications thereof), are not permitted to resell, etc. There is a large middle ground between "total transfer of all rights" and "won't even show you the code so you can switch devs", and by presenting such a false dichotomy, you're absolutely trying to blackmail your client into staying with you. It's no wonder they want to leave, and I wish them luck in doing it.
That's an incremental and obvious improvement based on new technology, not something that should've ever been considered "non-obvious" enough to be patentable.
That aside from the fact that software should never be patentable in any case, for the reason of scenarios exactly like this. These "Now done ON A COMPUTER!" patents are extremely disruptive, in most cases.
One needs not be an expert on home security to learn that locking one's windows and doors is a reasonable precaution, so I'm not sure how your point that not everyone is an expert is relevant. One needs not be "techie" to install Firefox and an A/V suite. We're not talking about writing your own browser and A/V, just clicking a couple of prompts. That takes no more training than learning to lock a door.
And, yes, before you use any tool, be it a power drill, a telephone, or a computer, you should familiarize yourself with the basics on how to operate it properly. Doesn't mean you have to know it inside out and backwards, but you should know at least the basics of what to do. If you fail to do so, you can't complain much when you drill through your finger or wind up in a botnet.
I used to have my access point open - You could tell it was used from time to time for web surfing by neighbours, and I didn't mind. Then, one day, it was saturated 24/7, presumably with torrents. So I said screw that, and locked it down. Now only I use it. In your apple tree analogy, I don't mind if someone takes a few apples, but if they pick the tree clean of every single apple I'll cut off the branches that lean over their property.
And that is fine, and absolutely your prerogative. I leave mine open, and thus far no one's ever used it abusively. I see a neighbor on it from time to time when I'm actually looking, but I don't mind. I hopped on someone's AP while I was waiting for my net hookup, I don't mind if someone else does the same in turn. On the other hand, if someone was totally saturating it, I'd probably wind up locking it out too.
But that doesn't change the fact that, with as easy as it is for even non-technical users to set up AP security now, leaving an AP open is largely equivalent to granting permission to use it. I personally like the idea of widely availabie wifi open to the public, and I don't think the world's a worse place for a bit of sharing. Nor have any of the usual nightmare scenarios trotted out (bandwidth saturation, FBI at the door, etc.), ever occurred with doing so. So, sure, I leave my wifi open for use, and very deliberately so.
There's nothing any more wrong with using unsecured wifi signals than there is with admiring your neighbor's flower garden over your fence. Neither deprives the neighbor of a thing. Now, if your neighbor gets annoyed with you doing it, walls off the flowers, and you trespass on his property to get a look, you're over the line. That's still not stealing, it's trespass, and the word "theft" is so often used in a hideously inaccurate manner, but it's still clearly done without authorization. Using an open AP is absolutely not. The idea that authorization status is unknown at that point is also inaccurate. If I set up a public facing Apache server with a website on it, and someone views that website, they're perfectly right to assume they're authorized to do so. Unless I specifically set up security (a password login, etc.), they've no reason to believe viewing that site isn't authorized.
Well, there was that aspect too. But there were a tremendous number of terrible ratings solely because of the DRM. That actually got EA's attention, and got them to tone it down quite significantly. A lot of people will skip right over anything they see with a terrible Amazon rating, and not even give it a second glance.
I was considering this one. I'd played the first Assassin's Creed borrowed from a friend, and I liked it quite well. But given this issue, I have an easy solution for the DRM.
I just won't buy the game, since I can't be assured of it continuing to function if Ubisoft goes out of business tomorrow. They sure showed me!
Also, remember the horrible ratings Spore got on Amazon, because of the overly invasive DRM? That actually worked. Why not do the same here?
Permission is not required in the instance of fair use. In this case, he was distributing something that was technically copyrighted, but is not in itself a commercial product, and was clearly distributed for the purpose of commentary, criticism, and public interest. Fair use is ultimately only determined by a court case, but those are all strong factors in favor of it.
Didn't mean for things to be heated, and actually I think you and I probably agree a lot more than we originally thought. I'd actually be alright with the changes you propose. If we were to say "Alright, businesses, we'll provide some guarantees against the rug suddenly being pulled out from under you, but at the same time you need to quit arbitrarily terminating employees and making 500% profit just because you can", I'm alright with that. What I don't like is the current situation, where Big Business wants "fairness" to it, but wants in return to be as soulless, cutthroat, and "responsible only to the shareholders".
I'm also with you in terms of reasonable terms, though I just can't go with the term "intellectual property"-nonrival goods cannot be property, and it lumps too many unrelated things (copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, etc.) under a header that's ill-named to start with. You make copyrights into a ten year, opt in only system, I'm totally with it. You leave patents even at their current time frame but specify that they can cover only tangible things and not processes, software, business methods, DNA, etc., I'm totally with it. But don't call it "property", it's a limited time monopoly enforcement. That would meet the constitutional mandate, that copyright and patent protection must be designed to promote progress. Currently, it largely hinders it.
Far as selling someone something, if I sell someone my car, I don't care if they keep it as is, modify it, scrap it for parts, whatever they want. It's their property now, and if it's not exactly to their liking in the form I sell it in, they've every right to modify it. Once I sell it, I've no right to stop them. I don't consider it in the slightest "sleazy" to modify what you purchased-it's yours, and if you don't consider it as useful as you want it to be (even if the seller thinks you should), you have every right to tweak it to your liking.
I guess these backflip justifications are really where regulation comes in. I see some marginal relevance in what you put, but not a tremendous amount. If you want to know how skilled or trustworthy someone is, require experience, and look at how they did in their last job. Managing corporate funds is far different from managing one's own, and one who is good at one is not necessarily at the other.
Luckily, my state has a citizen initiative process. I know there's already been talk of banning insurance companies from using credit checks to determine rates. Maybe not a bad time to get something on the ballot that says credit checks may be used for the purpose of determining whether to grant credit, and absolutely nothing else.
Criminal background check, I get. Have I been convicted of theft five times, and am applying for a job where I'll have access to cash, financial data, or expensive equipment? I'll buy that that's relevant. It's also public record, in any case, as all court records are. But actually, you illustrate an issue right there. A credit check? I've never requested a loan from a prospective employer, and I do not imagine that most of us do, nor is a credit check open to the general public like court records are. Why would they need a credit check?
As to the stuff on your resume, I can certainly also see doing verifications with the school you claim you went to, the companies you claim you worked for, etc. You can verify that this stuff isn't lies without fingerprinting someone (or, for that matter, running credit checks). You can verify whether someone is actually at work or not by verifying that they're physically present. I see no problem with keeping the invasiveness to the minimum possible, and if necessary, restricting it.
Thank you for so clearly stating the exact problem I did! The problem most certainly is that there is a way in existence to keep people from running their own servers, and that sending lawyers after them is effective. There should not be such a thing as an "unauthorized" server-an "unofficial" one, perhaps, but there should be absolutely no way for them to be stopped.
I don't entirely agree with the concept that businesses are entities in the view of the law, but you're making a strong case why they should be. If going out of your way to make your neighbor lose money or sanity via harassment, assault, theft, stalking, or just by criminal negligence , is illegal--and well it ought to be--then doing so to a business is equally heinous, irrespective of whether you are a direct competitor or just an average Joe.
Ermmm? Businesses go out of their way to make one another lose money all the time, and I might do so by, for example, advocating a boycott. Businesses aren't people (don't particularly care what the Supreme Court said), and they are not entitled to the human rights that my neighbor is. That being said, it's not illegal for me to modify property I purchase from my neighbor, either. What you're suggesting is an even higher standard for businesses, that has nothing to do with assault, theft, criminal negligence (really?) or any other crime.
That doesn't by any means suggest that they should be allowed to harass, assault, steal from, stalk, or be negligent to you, either.
I'm sure millions of Windows users will be glad to hear that they will no longer need to deal with the forced installation of "genuine advantage" (or whatever they call it these days). Forced phoning home, harassment of the user (in many cases inaccurately), even the ability to remotely kill the system? Sounds like harassment to me. Of course, because of crap like that, I make them lose money-I don't use their operating system at all. Send the cops, I use an operating system no one at all gets paid for!
That doesn't make any sense, for one specific reason: any modification, and in particular reverse engineering, has the potential to amount to industrial espionage in a way that there is no feasible way to contractually forbid (except by EULA). They spent millions of dollars making a system like that--when nobody else would have or could have--gathered the people necessary to create a market, found exactly the right combination of everything involved, and then someone with your mindset comes in, provides the plans that took millions of dollars to produce, and churns it out with a couple hundred bucks of R&D in total, maybe a few thousand if you count lost hours of productivity. You are technically capable of distributing these plans to the lowest bidder or even for free, at which point equivalent but significantly cheaper hardware could undercut the company. If this were a person instead of a company, they'd have you in chains, because you just stole millions of dollars from them.
You've every right to try to make money. You've no right to succeed at it. If what you're selling is essentially a commodity, that can be easily replicated by anyone, you'd best factor that into your business plan. Your failure to do so is not "theft" on my part, it's poor planning on yours. And in fact, reverse engineering to make compatible equipment is actually one of the very few things the US DMCA did have the sense to allow. That's actually been upheldmany times.
The Chamberlain case there is one that's easily on point for this, as is Lexmark. It does not matter a bit that your business model is to sell these garage door openers which can be circumvented, or that it's to sell printers cheap and gouge for ink. In both cases, someone can make something that interoperates with your item, even if it undercuts that model. Failure to plan for inevitabilities on your part should lead to a smack to the back of the head, not legal protection. And, yes, in a capitalist system, someone competing with you and trying to undercut you is an inevitability. To try and have that not happen is not capitalism, it's effectively c
Well, for one thing, leases are of a fixed duration, and the exact length of the lease is determined ahead of time. The lease can be for an exactly fixed period (think a four-year vehicle lease) or for an indefinite but determinate period (think of "You may continue to lease your modem from us until you disconnect your Internet service"), but it cannot simply be "You lease this from us and may keep it as long as you want, but you don't really own it." If you give me an item in return for money, and will allow me to keep it for as long as I want, that's a sale, and no EULA should be able to take that away.
It's your mentality that has the problem. Being disruptive to a business model is not and should not be against the law, and no one can "force" them to implement anything. They may choose to do so, or not, just like I can choose to buy their stuff, or not. If they're implementing overly harsh protection, and I can't easily get past it, the likely answer is "I'll pass". What they shouldn't be able to do is prevent one from making modifications to a physical device which one purchased outright. If you sell me a piece of physical property, it is now mine. That means I may use, abuse, modify, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, fold, spindle, mutilate, and whatever the hell else I might want to do with it. You can certainly void the warranty and refuse to offer support if I do such things, but you shouldn't be in any way able to stop me.
I'm not entirely sure if that was the case. Even then, I would think myself that using portions for interoperability, for something the original copyright holder has explicitly stated they have no interest in doing, should generally be fair use. But I'm talking about developing something entirely on my own, that just happens to interoperate with what you make. Say, for example, a mod chip that happens to fit a device you make. That's absolutely freedom to tinker and reverse engineer.
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Realistically, yes. If that's an outdated, unworkable model given current technology, let it die and something else replace it.
You can't lock down content, with everyone having high powered data copying machines in their living room, and many people having the skill to crack through even the most devious of lockdown schemes. And it only takes breaking it (or running it through the analog hole, or what have you), once.
They've tried with software. They've tried with music. They've tried with movies, consoles, games, what have you, from VHS tapes all the way up to Blu-Rays, from floppies to downloads. And they've tried in a lot of ways, from "Type in the fifth word in the first paragraph of the ninth page..." to the current encryption schemes. And they all fail. And they all will fail. You can't simultaneously give people content and prevent them from viewing it, and you can't prevent someone who's able to view it or hear it from copying it, even if they need a quiet room and a good quality recorder to do so.
This is good. Yes, it's going to cause some headaches for some people. Yes, it's going to require some ingenuity from us as to how we replace the old methods of generating content creation. Yes, it might even make a baby cry somewhere. But disruptive technology is, well, disruptive, and the gains we get from the wide availability and usability of computers is far greater than any drawback.
It's time to sit down and figure out what the future model is. It probably doesn't involve large prices. Most of it probably doesn't involve any prices (perhaps advertising, perhaps people working in their spare time and not needing pay). People have already figured out that they don't have to pay, and whether you like it or not, when you've got a worse (DRM restricted) product, at a higher (not free) price, you're not going to win that one. The only thing you can do is to make your product better and more convenient, at minimal cost.
The end result is probably going to include a lot of collaborative development, in the vein of open source. We've already seen several smash hits this way-anyone familiar with Firefox, or Wikipedia?-and will certainly see more as this model is refined.
In other cases, all-you-can-eat has proved to be a good approach. Netflix is killing video stores with all-you-can-eat, and, well, a large torrent site is a great example of the success of the all-you-can-eat approach, like it or not. Make a convenient, centralized location with a low subscription fee, and allow your customers to (totally legally) download whatever they may like, without having to wait around for a seeder, add some areas where they can discuss the stuff, and you've got a compelling reason for them to pay. Now you're offering more for the money (convenience, easy access, legality), not less (restrictions and DRM the downloaded copies don't have).
And realistically, there probably won't be near as much need for commercial production in this type of thing going forward. You don't need a factory to produce and distribute CDs, you don't need a box to get software. That's already irreversibly changed, and altogether, that change is for the better. Now we've just got to work out this bump. And we do-it does raise a legitimate issue. But in order to do that, we need to get the "content producers" to quit dragging their feet and pretending it's 1985 (and trying to get everyone else to pretend it's 1985), and sit down to figure out how to move forward, not back.
However, with units of measurement, it is critical that they be consistent. An inch is one-twelfth of one foot. A foot is one third of a yard and 1/5280 of a mile. Since the metric system also uses these standards, feet can be converted precisely and accurately to meters, and grams precisely and accurately to ounces.
The problem here is in having the same unit of measurement mean two different things in two different contexts. If an "inch" were one length when measuring fabric, a slightly different length when building a bridge, and different yet again when measuring a person's height, now we've got a confusing situation where one must try to interpret context to determine just how long an "inch" actually is. If you need a unit of measurement for a different context, you develop a new one, you don't give an existing one a different meaning.
The SI units are a good solution to that. It's clear from reading that "KiB" is similar to, but not quite, a kilobyte. A "kilo"- anything is 1000 of that thing. That's a well defined standard, and one we'd do well not to break. But since working with the binary variants is a convenient and logical way to work with a lot of things in the CS/IT field, we need new units of measurement that reflect them.
Luckily, they've already gotten designed. Now they just need to get used. Good on Ubuntu for doing so, and blowing off those who resist beneficial change just because it's change.
However, even that establishes a crucial framework. Copyright is not to "protect authors", to "give them rights", or any such thing. It is to promote progress, and it is only justifiable insofar as it actually, realistically does.
So, for example, retroactively extending copyrights was unjustifiable. One cannot promote progress by further locking down things already made. Letting a piece of copyrighted material go to the public domain in a timely manner, while it is still usable, is also crucial for promoting progress.
I also don't think one can realistically argue that today's massive terms do much more for progress than a ten to twenty year term would.
Free speech is never absolute, and certainly never in a commercial setting. For example, your doctor cannot go post your medical records on a public website. That's free speech, but HIPAA bans it, and I think you'd find arguing that a doctor should be exempt from HIPAA on free speech grounds not to meet the reception you'd expect in court.
In advertising specifically, tobacco and alcohol ads are already restricted. Indeed, a mandate of disclosures (and a requirement that advertising be true) are all allowable restrictions.
And I say this as someone who will ardently defend the freedom of speech, even down to things one finds disgusting or shocking or distasteful. But speech when you're trying to sell something is different altogether. Speech when you're selling something that could have significant risks, ten times so. No constitutional amendment is required here.
That's certainly what I meant, at least. If a drug is safe enough to let people buy it off a grocery store shelf without consulting a doctor, we're talking about a different story. Folic acid, shampoo, and cough medicine are not generally prescription drugs, nor are suicide help hotlines.
You can quite easily run an ad saying "Do you have a giant neck growth? Help may be available for you, consult your doctor!" without advocating a specific treatment.
Quit allowing the advertisement of prescription drugs. The reason that prescription drugs are, well, by prescription, is that they may carry significant risks, and careful evaluation by a professional is required as to whether a patient should take them.
If a patient needs a prescription, let their doctor be the one who gives them their options, based on a full discussion of the risks and benefits of each possible one, and let the patient be the one to decide based on this information. And while we're at it, let's disallow the pharma companies from ever knowing how often a given doctor prescribes their stuff, so that they can't give any type of reward or kickback (they would still, of course, know how often they're prescribed in aggregate).
Medical decisions should be made based upon a detailed discussion with a professional, not a glossy brochure.
Are you quite serious?
The school might get upset, and take disciplinary action, but we're most certainly not talking felony territory here. A felony would be cracking into a system you don't have permission to use at all, or outright stealing a laptop (and even that, in many states, would depend how much the laptop is worth). It's not a felony to use a machine you've been granted permission to use. Now, certainly, if you go outside the scope of how you're supposed to use it, they might take it away and take internal disciplinary action, both of which are within their rights. But I have no idea how you think this is a felony.
That being said, even if it technically is, good on them for being willing to do it. Let your students learn how things work, by tinkering with them (and if need be, learning how to break locks someone attempts to put on your stuff). Give them full admin rights, make it crystal clear that the students (and parents) are fully and solely responsible for what's done with the machine, and wipe and reburn it every time it comes back in to go to a different student. Don't lock everything down all to hell. When I was in school myself, we had unfettered Net access and admin accounts on every machine in the school, because no one knew it was even possible to try to lock a system down. And we learned from it, and the sky didn't fall. The world wouldn't be a worse place for a little less paranoia and a little more tinkering.
Dunno about "in reality" when GP was married, but I know of a lot of people annoyed with that, and it apparently has been changing. I'm getting married myself here in a little under 6 months, and one thing we explicitly looked for in a photographer was a full transfer of all rights. I'd say it was about 50/50, the ones who did that as a matter of course vs. those who charged extra for it, and there really wasn't a price differential between the two. So, while it may be conceivable for the photographer to retain all rights, it's apparently caused enough of a loss in business for people to stop it. Certainly lost mine-if I was considering a photographer, and the answer to that question was "We retain all the rights, but you can pay $XXX for them", my response was "Thank you for your time" and an end to the conversation.
I have high quality printing equipment that I'm more than capable of doing my own reprints on, and will also likely put together a quick website for friends/family to visit and get them from. I'm paying the photographer for skill in photography and the time spent using those skills, not to eternally pay more for stuff I'm quite capable of taking over myself from that point onward.
Lest anyone think this is entirely offtopic, the same applies to developers-if the customer pays you to do the initial development, and then moves on to doing support themself or having someone else provide it, just make sure you charge enough for the initial development work that it's worth your time even if that happens. If you're charging based on hopes of something in the future, rather than what you've got the contract for right now, well, that's just foolish and of course you'll find yourself in a tough spot. Deal honestly and squarely with your customers, and you'll find many of them are happy to contract for additional work or continue to request you for consulting. Yank them around, and not only will they never consider you again, but there will be someone else they talk to that will never consider you either-even though you'll never know.
I've never understood billing in that way. I always insist on a contract, or at least memorandum of understanding, be completed before I start work. If you want to contract for the development plus several years' support, I probably will give you some type of "bundle" discount. If you just want the work, and don't want to contract past that, I'll make sure I charge you enough for it that my time and effort in development is worth it, even if you do then decide to seek support elsewhere.
However, I'll actually charge you less if you will agree to the finished product being GPL'd, because I quite often find myself wanting to incorporate GPL code. If you want something proprietary, I'll charge you more, because then I can't do that, and I have to write more and reuse less. In addition, you probably wind up with less rights in the final product. The types of things I do are customized for each person I work with, so I'm not concerned if you redistribute the end product-it's probably of little use to anyone but you anyway.
And because I do deal fairly with people, and don't give them unpleasant surprises, I am often asked for assistance or consulting down the road-who better than the guy who wrote it, if you were happy with him?
I would never, however, set up a contract that asked the customer not to receive the source code at all. I have enough confidence in my work that I'm more than willing to give you the option of going elsewhere if you're not happy. And it's people like the guy asking the very question, above, that make people so damned gun shy about hiring freelancers to start with. (Disclaimer: I'm not freelancing now, but I've done so in the relatively recent past, and I don't think the field could have changed that much between then and now.)
Bullshit. Utter bullshit. You can give the client who wants to switch developers a copy of the source code to allow them to do so, without actually granting them ownership of your supposedly extremely valuable libraries. Write up a contract that says they're only permitted to use them in conjunction with the software you wrote for them (or future modifications thereof), are not permitted to resell, etc. There is a large middle ground between "total transfer of all rights" and "won't even show you the code so you can switch devs", and by presenting such a false dichotomy, you're absolutely trying to blackmail your client into staying with you. It's no wonder they want to leave, and I wish them luck in doing it.
That's an incremental and obvious improvement based on new technology, not something that should've ever been considered "non-obvious" enough to be patentable.
That aside from the fact that software should never be patentable in any case, for the reason of scenarios exactly like this. These "Now done ON A COMPUTER!" patents are extremely disruptive, in most cases.
One needs not be an expert on home security to learn that locking one's windows and doors is a reasonable precaution, so I'm not sure how your point that not everyone is an expert is relevant. One needs not be "techie" to install Firefox and an A/V suite. We're not talking about writing your own browser and A/V, just clicking a couple of prompts. That takes no more training than learning to lock a door.
And, yes, before you use any tool, be it a power drill, a telephone, or a computer, you should familiarize yourself with the basics on how to operate it properly. Doesn't mean you have to know it inside out and backwards, but you should know at least the basics of what to do. If you fail to do so, you can't complain much when you drill through your finger or wind up in a botnet.
And that is fine, and absolutely your prerogative. I leave mine open, and thus far no one's ever used it abusively. I see a neighbor on it from time to time when I'm actually looking, but I don't mind. I hopped on someone's AP while I was waiting for my net hookup, I don't mind if someone else does the same in turn. On the other hand, if someone was totally saturating it, I'd probably wind up locking it out too.
But that doesn't change the fact that, with as easy as it is for even non-technical users to set up AP security now, leaving an AP open is largely equivalent to granting permission to use it. I personally like the idea of widely availabie wifi open to the public, and I don't think the world's a worse place for a bit of sharing. Nor have any of the usual nightmare scenarios trotted out (bandwidth saturation, FBI at the door, etc.), ever occurred with doing so. So, sure, I leave my wifi open for use, and very deliberately so.
There's nothing any more wrong with using unsecured wifi signals than there is with admiring your neighbor's flower garden over your fence. Neither deprives the neighbor of a thing. Now, if your neighbor gets annoyed with you doing it, walls off the flowers, and you trespass on his property to get a look, you're over the line. That's still not stealing, it's trespass, and the word "theft" is so often used in a hideously inaccurate manner, but it's still clearly done without authorization. Using an open AP is absolutely not. The idea that authorization status is unknown at that point is also inaccurate. If I set up a public facing Apache server with a website on it, and someone views that website, they're perfectly right to assume they're authorized to do so. Unless I specifically set up security (a password login, etc.), they've no reason to believe viewing that site isn't authorized.
Well, there was that aspect too. But there were a tremendous number of terrible ratings solely because of the DRM. That actually got EA's attention, and got them to tone it down quite significantly. A lot of people will skip right over anything they see with a terrible Amazon rating, and not even give it a second glance.
I was considering this one. I'd played the first Assassin's Creed borrowed from a friend, and I liked it quite well. But given this issue, I have an easy solution for the DRM.
I just won't buy the game, since I can't be assured of it continuing to function if Ubisoft goes out of business tomorrow. They sure showed me!
Also, remember the horrible ratings Spore got on Amazon, because of the overly invasive DRM? That actually worked. Why not do the same here?
Permission is not required in the instance of fair use. In this case, he was distributing something that was technically copyrighted, but is not in itself a commercial product, and was clearly distributed for the purpose of commentary, criticism, and public interest. Fair use is ultimately only determined by a court case, but those are all strong factors in favor of it.
Didn't mean for things to be heated, and actually I think you and I probably agree a lot more than we originally thought. I'd actually be alright with the changes you propose. If we were to say "Alright, businesses, we'll provide some guarantees against the rug suddenly being pulled out from under you, but at the same time you need to quit arbitrarily terminating employees and making 500% profit just because you can", I'm alright with that. What I don't like is the current situation, where Big Business wants "fairness" to it, but wants in return to be as soulless, cutthroat, and "responsible only to the shareholders".
I'm also with you in terms of reasonable terms, though I just can't go with the term "intellectual property"-nonrival goods cannot be property, and it lumps too many unrelated things (copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, etc.) under a header that's ill-named to start with. You make copyrights into a ten year, opt in only system, I'm totally with it. You leave patents even at their current time frame but specify that they can cover only tangible things and not processes, software, business methods, DNA, etc., I'm totally with it. But don't call it "property", it's a limited time monopoly enforcement. That would meet the constitutional mandate, that copyright and patent protection must be designed to promote progress. Currently, it largely hinders it.
Far as selling someone something, if I sell someone my car, I don't care if they keep it as is, modify it, scrap it for parts, whatever they want. It's their property now, and if it's not exactly to their liking in the form I sell it in, they've every right to modify it. Once I sell it, I've no right to stop them. I don't consider it in the slightest "sleazy" to modify what you purchased-it's yours, and if you don't consider it as useful as you want it to be (even if the seller thinks you should), you have every right to tweak it to your liking.
I guess these backflip justifications are really where regulation comes in. I see some marginal relevance in what you put, but not a tremendous amount. If you want to know how skilled or trustworthy someone is, require experience, and look at how they did in their last job. Managing corporate funds is far different from managing one's own, and one who is good at one is not necessarily at the other.
Luckily, my state has a citizen initiative process. I know there's already been talk of banning insurance companies from using credit checks to determine rates. Maybe not a bad time to get something on the ballot that says credit checks may be used for the purpose of determining whether to grant credit, and absolutely nothing else.
Criminal background check, I get. Have I been convicted of theft five times, and am applying for a job where I'll have access to cash, financial data, or expensive equipment? I'll buy that that's relevant. It's also public record, in any case, as all court records are. But actually, you illustrate an issue right there. A credit check? I've never requested a loan from a prospective employer, and I do not imagine that most of us do, nor is a credit check open to the general public like court records are. Why would they need a credit check?
As to the stuff on your resume, I can certainly also see doing verifications with the school you claim you went to, the companies you claim you worked for, etc. You can verify that this stuff isn't lies without fingerprinting someone (or, for that matter, running credit checks). You can verify whether someone is actually at work or not by verifying that they're physically present. I see no problem with keeping the invasiveness to the minimum possible, and if necessary, restricting it.
Thank you for so clearly stating the exact problem I did! The problem most certainly is that there is a way in existence to keep people from running their own servers, and that sending lawyers after them is effective. There should not be such a thing as an "unauthorized" server-an "unofficial" one, perhaps, but there should be absolutely no way for them to be stopped.
Ermmm? Businesses go out of their way to make one another lose money all the time, and I might do so by, for example, advocating a boycott. Businesses aren't people (don't particularly care what the Supreme Court said), and they are not entitled to the human rights that my neighbor is. That being said, it's not illegal for me to modify property I purchase from my neighbor, either. What you're suggesting is an even higher standard for businesses, that has nothing to do with assault, theft, criminal negligence (really?) or any other crime.
I'm sure millions of Windows users will be glad to hear that they will no longer need to deal with the forced installation of "genuine advantage" (or whatever they call it these days). Forced phoning home, harassment of the user (in many cases inaccurately), even the ability to remotely kill the system? Sounds like harassment to me. Of course, because of crap like that, I make them lose money-I don't use their operating system at all. Send the cops, I use an operating system no one at all gets paid for!
You've every right to try to make money. You've no right to succeed at it. If what you're selling is essentially a commodity, that can be easily replicated by anyone, you'd best factor that into your business plan. Your failure to do so is not "theft" on my part, it's poor planning on yours. And in fact, reverse engineering to make compatible equipment is actually one of the very few things the US DMCA did have the sense to allow. That's actually been upheld many times.
The Chamberlain case there is one that's easily on point for this, as is Lexmark. It does not matter a bit that your business model is to sell these garage door openers which can be circumvented, or that it's to sell printers cheap and gouge for ink. In both cases, someone can make something that interoperates with your item, even if it undercuts that model. Failure to plan for inevitabilities on your part should lead to a smack to the back of the head, not legal protection. And, yes, in a capitalist system, someone competing with you and trying to undercut you is an inevitability. To try and have that not happen is not capitalism, it's effectively c
Well, for one thing, leases are of a fixed duration, and the exact length of the lease is determined ahead of time. The lease can be for an exactly fixed period (think a four-year vehicle lease) or for an indefinite but determinate period (think of "You may continue to lease your modem from us until you disconnect your Internet service"), but it cannot simply be "You lease this from us and may keep it as long as you want, but you don't really own it." If you give me an item in return for money, and will allow me to keep it for as long as I want, that's a sale, and no EULA should be able to take that away.
It's your mentality that has the problem. Being disruptive to a business model is not and should not be against the law, and no one can "force" them to implement anything. They may choose to do so, or not, just like I can choose to buy their stuff, or not. If they're implementing overly harsh protection, and I can't easily get past it, the likely answer is "I'll pass". What they shouldn't be able to do is prevent one from making modifications to a physical device which one purchased outright. If you sell me a piece of physical property, it is now mine. That means I may use, abuse, modify, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, fold, spindle, mutilate, and whatever the hell else I might want to do with it. You can certainly void the warranty and refuse to offer support if I do such things, but you shouldn't be in any way able to stop me.
I'm not entirely sure if that was the case. Even then, I would think myself that using portions for interoperability, for something the original copyright holder has explicitly stated they have no interest in doing, should generally be fair use. But I'm talking about developing something entirely on my own, that just happens to interoperate with what you make. Say, for example, a mod chip that happens to fit a device you make. That's absolutely freedom to tinker and reverse engineer.