Apparently, a Google search is too complicated for some people even when spoon-fed to them. I'll summarize.
The mere fact that the RIAA knows who is doing the file sharing is a result of them filing lawsuits. Judges have limited the scope of the RIAA's legal activities at least twice. The first action required the RIAA to file a John Doe lawsuit, rather than merely requesting customer identities from ISPs under the DMCA. The second action, filed last year, requires the RIAA to file separate lawsuits for every John Doe they wish to challenge.
The RIAA is obviously suing - if they didn't, they wouldn't know where to send the extortion (err, settlement) letters.
A very insightful post. I think the problem with this, and the reason 911 is supported on VoIP in the first place, is a person shouldn't have to think about those things in an emergency. You should be able to pick up any phone, anywhere in the United States, and be able to dial 911.
As a post further up said, 911 is supposed to be so easy a kid can do it. VoIP has gotten to the point that kids can use it. 911 should be just as easy.
I am not a lawyer, but I can see Tiger Direct's point here. Tiger Direct certainly isn't guaranteed a position in the search engines, but it's reasonable to argue that if another company in the same sector (computer sales) infringes on a trademark they claim, hurting their search ranking in the process, then they've been injured by trademark infringement.
On the other hand, I don't see how filing the suit the day before the product launch could be anything but a stunt.
With the incredible, rock-hard stability and security of Microsoft (R) Windows (TM) Longhorn that only improves on the reliability of its predecessors, why would you ever need to shut it down?
Your question was, "Do you seriously think that as long as you don't get caught by a cop, that you shouldn't face the consequence?" not "Is it wrong to go down the highway at 150 MPH?"
I do agree that criminals should be prepared to face the consequences. Perhaps this disagreement is merely a difference in semantics.
who the hell is the French government to say what kind of copy protection companies can and cannot put on their own damn products?
The elected representatives of the people of France, who supposedly are there to represent the interests of the people.
Like it or not, those companies OWN that content, and they are selling it to you.
No, they have a license from the government (and by extension, the people) that grants them the exclusive right to copy their content, subject to certain conditions. One of those conditions is that the license is temporary. If the public cannot get access to the content after copyright expires, they are being cheated out of their end of the deal.
If they don't want you to copy it, they have every right to put a copy protection scheme on it beforehand.
No they don't, because the people don't get the benefits they are supposed to from the copyright contract: the work becomes public domain after a period of time, and the public can copy the work under limited situations in the meantime ("fair use").
That doesn't mean that the buyer wont eventually crack it, but they can put it there.
In the United States, and increasingly in other countries, laws prohibit the possession and/or use of software or devices to crack digital restrictions management, even for fair use. In the United States, that law is called the DMCA.
Hey, let's all hop on the gravy train here. While we're at it, let's start bashing NDA's, EULAs...
Okay, let's. NDAs protect trade secrets, a legitimate form of legal protection that is necessary, among other reasons, to give smaller companies a chance to compete against bigger companies. If trade secrets were not enforced, bigger companies could hire corporate spies to find out what smaller companies are innovating, and beat them to market - with impunity.
EULAs, on the other hand, impose artificial restrictions on what people can do with software. Let's look at some typical clauses in a EULA:
Limitation of liability. Why should you be able to sue a car manufacturer if a defect injures you, but not a software manufacturer?
Prohibition of transfer. Why should a software company be able to prohibit the sale of something you own to somebody else?
Prohibition of benchmarking and reviews. Why should a software company be able to restrict you from discussing the quality of their software with others?
Prohibition of rental or lending. Why should a software company be able to decide that you can't lend out a copy of software, even if you've deleted the copy from your computer and transfer all the discs, manuals, etc.?
EULAs are not necessary to protect software company's investment - copyright law already defines what people can do with software just fine. If companies want to treat intellectual property as tangible property, fine, let's do so. This means the consumer should get the same rights with software that they get with a car.
and anything else that puts any kind of restriction whatsoever on the use of media, because consumer freedom means being able to do anything you want!!
The purpose of intellectual property laws are to ensure the public benefits from the creativity of others. It does this by providing economic gain for creativity for a limited period of time.
Again, I'm no schill for the RIAA/MPAA stuffed suits. Those guys are a bunch of assholes.
Cool. We agree on something.
But they do have the right to try and protect their products, at least as far as copy protecting it with harmless DRM that wont damage any equipment/data.
They do not have the right to protect their products at the expense of the public. DRM is harmful to data by nature. It allows the content creator to delete or revoke access to content you've bought and paid for without warning.
Surely the system would have to allow for variants in speed, you can exceed the limit by what, 10 miles an hour, when you pass someone? So here it would be dumb to be ticketed for an instance like that. A system that used to be in operation here had no such variation - if you were even one mile per hour over the speed limit, you would receive a ticket. Not only that, but ticket-issuing potential skyrocketed - instead of pulling over one car and writing out the ticket, the contractor just needed to point-and-shoot. They got a cut of every ticket issued with none of the messy work of identifying who was in the vehicle, appearing in court, etc.
BUT, if you're doing 150 on the highway, do you seriously think that as long as you don't get caught by a cop, that you shouldn't face the consequence for knowingly breaking the law? Yes.
Requiring human beings to enforce the law, rather than computers, has a nice side-effect: it adds a check to laws. It forces the police to prioritize their resources according to the whims of the general public. If people aren't as concerned about a particular law, less resources go into enforcing it, and society's collective will is better represented.
Incidentally, this is happening with the RIAA right now. Instead of needing to be caught by a law enforcement official, the RIAA merely scans open P2P nodes, automatically, and has the paperwork generated by a computer with a convenient pre-written settlement.
Do you think every one of the RIAA lawsuits in the last two years has been fair?
I'm not an American, but I'm guessing that SSNs are only useful when combined with the Names (and maybe addresses) of the people.
You're very likely to have access to the name and address, since it'll usually be stored in the same place as the SSN.
And that SSNs are not created serially, but randomly. Am I correct?
Nope. Social Security Numbers are indeed created serially.
I've tried 6.0, 7.0, and 8.0, and Opera's always felt a little flaky to me. My main complaint is the toolbars don't do what I want them to do - namely, stay in the same place. That progress bar that comes up when Opera's loading a page doesn't show up on my copy - it's only a little stub about 10 pixels tall that peaks out from the bottom of the window.
In contrast, the only Firefox bug that irritates me (and not as badly as Opera's overall feel) is https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=21576 2 (not linked because Bugzilla blocks Slashdot).
I trust Firefox, whereas I feel like I have to tiptoe around Opera.
For me, the hardest part of choosing the options for the kernel are workarounds for hardware bugs. It's really hard for me to pick out the ones I need and don't need, and in the meantime, the help text isn't all that useful.
I wish there would be a wizard or tutorial to help me with those. I can probably manage the other choices on my own.
Apple handled this well. Had they followed through with their threat, the negative publicity from such a stunt would be enormous. (For comparison, consider how most people view the RIAA right now.)
Yes, he should have had alarm bells in his head, along with a flashing sign with "IDIOT" in red letters. The settlement is good for everybody - he got a second chance, and Apple didn't destroy their customer goodwill in one fell swoop.
I have read elsewhere (can't remember where, though it may have been UNIX for Dummies) that the main reason is that even if it is installed on some platforms by default, it wouldn't be on others, and people may become complacent typing "rm", knowing they can always get their files back - until they do it on a machine that doesn't have trash set up.
Write back to LJ and claim copyright infringement. LJ doesn't have anything to lose if your ex is defaming you, but they do if you notify them they are hosting your copyrighted content without your permission.
I do feel sorry for the victim, but I disagree with the solution. Expressions of fact cannot be copyrighted. Even if they could, the companies that issue the credit card number, phone number, and so forth would hold the copyright, not him.
There are other laws, such as defamation and privacy laws, that would be more effective.
Of course, I am not a lawyer, so if any lawyers read this, feel free to contradict and chastise me.
Very cool and I hope someone from Apple is reading this - THIS IS HOW YOU GET NEW CUSTOMERS AND KEEP YOUR OLD ONES.
Heck, I hope somebody from every $EVIL_COMPANY we normally scold on Slashdot is reading this. Getting rich from treating your customers right seems so much more fun and fulfilling than taking their money just because you can.
On the other hand, I don't have much sympathy for all the parent posters complaining that they have to pay extra for the upgrade. Why pay for Panther when you know that the insanely great upgrade is coming out before July, at the latest?
PHP?
I'm curious. I've never seen Xcode. How well (if at all) does it handle the typical web development languages like X(HT)ML, PHP, Perl, JavaScript, etc.?
Slashdot Mirror
Apparently, a Google search is too complicated for some people even when spoon-fed to them. I'll summarize.
The mere fact that the RIAA knows who is doing the file sharing is a result of them filing lawsuits. Judges have limited the scope of the RIAA's legal activities at least twice. The first action required the RIAA to file a John Doe lawsuit, rather than merely requesting customer identities from ISPs under the DMCA. The second action, filed last year, requires the RIAA to file separate lawsuits for every John Doe they wish to challenge.
The RIAA is obviously suing - if they didn't, they wouldn't know where to send the extortion (err, settlement) letters.
Repeat after me: The RIAA have not yet sued anyone.
Yes, they have.
I don't believe that they sell it as MacOSX Tiger...
Oh?
And yes, they do sell it as Mac OS X Tiger.
A very insightful post. I think the problem with this, and the reason 911 is supported on VoIP in the first place, is a person shouldn't have to think about those things in an emergency. You should be able to pick up any phone, anywhere in the United States, and be able to dial 911. As a post further up said, 911 is supposed to be so easy a kid can do it. VoIP has gotten to the point that kids can use it. 911 should be just as easy.
I know GPS (or tower triangulation) is for 911, and I'm pretty sure the network provides the time.
I am not a lawyer, but I can see Tiger Direct's point here. Tiger Direct certainly isn't guaranteed a position in the search engines, but it's reasonable to argue that if another company in the same sector (computer sales) infringes on a trademark they claim, hurting their search ranking in the process, then they've been injured by trademark infringement.
On the other hand, I don't see how filing the suit the day before the product launch could be anything but a stunt.
I'm rooting for Apple on this one.
With the incredible, rock-hard stability and security of Microsoft (R) Windows (TM) Longhorn that only improves on the reliability of its predecessors, why would you ever need to shut it down?
Your question was, "Do you seriously think that as long as you don't get caught by a cop, that you shouldn't face the consequence?" not "Is it wrong to go down the highway at 150 MPH?"
I do agree that criminals should be prepared to face the consequences. Perhaps this disagreement is merely a difference in semantics.
who the hell is the French government to say what kind of copy protection companies can and cannot put on their own damn products?
The elected representatives of the people of France, who supposedly are there to represent the interests of the people.
Like it or not, those companies OWN that content, and they are selling it to you.
No, they have a license from the government (and by extension, the people) that grants them the exclusive right to copy their content, subject to certain conditions. One of those conditions is that the license is temporary. If the public cannot get access to the content after copyright expires, they are being cheated out of their end of the deal.
If they don't want you to copy it, they have every right to put a copy protection scheme on it beforehand.
No they don't, because the people don't get the benefits they are supposed to from the copyright contract: the work becomes public domain after a period of time, and the public can copy the work under limited situations in the meantime ("fair use").
That doesn't mean that the buyer wont eventually crack it, but they can put it there.
In the United States, and increasingly in other countries, laws prohibit the possession and/or use of software or devices to crack digital restrictions management, even for fair use. In the United States, that law is called the DMCA.
Hey, let's all hop on the gravy train here. While we're at it, let's start bashing NDA's, EULAs...
Okay, let's. NDAs protect trade secrets, a legitimate form of legal protection that is necessary, among other reasons, to give smaller companies a chance to compete against bigger companies. If trade secrets were not enforced, bigger companies could hire corporate spies to find out what smaller companies are innovating, and beat them to market - with impunity.
EULAs, on the other hand, impose artificial restrictions on what people can do with software. Let's look at some typical clauses in a EULA:
EULAs are not necessary to protect software company's investment - copyright law already defines what people can do with software just fine. If companies want to treat intellectual property as tangible property, fine, let's do so. This means the consumer should get the same rights with software that they get with a car.
and anything else that puts any kind of restriction whatsoever on the use of media, because consumer freedom means being able to do anything you want!!
The purpose of intellectual property laws are to ensure the public benefits from the creativity of others. It does this by providing economic gain for creativity for a limited period of time.
Again, I'm no schill for the RIAA/MPAA stuffed suits. Those guys are a bunch of assholes.
Cool. We agree on something.
But they do have the right to try and protect their products, at least as far as copy protecting it with harmless DRM that wont damage any equipment/data.
They do not have the right to protect their products at the expense of the public. DRM is harmful to data by nature. It allows the content creator to delete or revoke access to content you've bought and paid for without warning.
Surely the system would have to allow for variants in speed, you can exceed the limit by what, 10 miles an hour, when you pass someone? So here it would be dumb to be ticketed for an instance like that.
A system that used to be in operation here had no such variation - if you were even one mile per hour over the speed limit, you would receive a ticket. Not only that, but ticket-issuing potential skyrocketed - instead of pulling over one car and writing out the ticket, the contractor just needed to point-and-shoot. They got a cut of every ticket issued with none of the messy work of identifying who was in the vehicle, appearing in court, etc.
BUT, if you're doing 150 on the highway, do you seriously think that as long as you don't get caught by a cop, that you shouldn't face the consequence for knowingly breaking the law?
Yes.
Requiring human beings to enforce the law, rather than computers, has a nice side-effect: it adds a check to laws. It forces the police to prioritize their resources according to the whims of the general public. If people aren't as concerned about a particular law, less resources go into enforcing it, and society's collective will is better represented.
Incidentally, this is happening with the RIAA right now. Instead of needing to be caught by a law enforcement official, the RIAA merely scans open P2P nodes, automatically, and has the paperwork generated by a computer with a convenient pre-written settlement.
Do you think every one of the RIAA lawsuits in the last two years has been fair?
Ahh...the age-old question:
If you can't restore it, is it really backed up?
How about Wayne Brady doing spots for Avaya?
I got the feeling that he didn't have a clue about what he was talking about.
I hope they have reliable backups.
I'm not an American, but I'm guessing that SSNs are only useful when combined with the Names (and maybe addresses) of the people.
You're very likely to have access to the name and address, since it'll usually be stored in the same place as the SSN.
And that SSNs are not created serially, but randomly. Am I correct?
Nope. Social Security Numbers are indeed created serially.
I've tried 6.0, 7.0, and 8.0, and Opera's always felt a little flaky to me. My main complaint is the toolbars don't do what I want them to do - namely, stay in the same place. That progress bar that comes up when Opera's loading a page doesn't show up on my copy - it's only a little stub about 10 pixels tall that peaks out from the bottom of the window.
6 2 (not linked because Bugzilla blocks Slashdot).
In contrast, the only Firefox bug that irritates me (and not as badly as Opera's overall feel) is https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2157
I trust Firefox, whereas I feel like I have to tiptoe around Opera.
For me, the hardest part of choosing the options for the kernel are workarounds for hardware bugs. It's really hard for me to pick out the ones I need and don't need, and in the meantime, the help text isn't all that useful.
I wish there would be a wizard or tutorial to help me with those. I can probably manage the other choices on my own.
Apple handled this well. Had they followed through with their threat, the negative publicity from such a stunt would be enormous. (For comparison, consider how most people view the RIAA right now.) Yes, he should have had alarm bells in his head, along with a flashing sign with "IDIOT" in red letters. The settlement is good for everybody - he got a second chance, and Apple didn't destroy their customer goodwill in one fell swoop.
It does the same thing I used to do as a kid - hide the mess in a corner where nobody would see it.
I have read elsewhere (can't remember where, though it may have been UNIX for Dummies) that the main reason is that even if it is installed on some platforms by default, it wouldn't be on others, and people may become complacent typing "rm", knowing they can always get their files back - until they do it on a machine that doesn't have trash set up.
Cool. Maybe we can finally squeeze a TCP/IP connection into Morse Code now.
Yes, being alive would be most helpful :) Thanks for making me smile (smirk?).
I would still blame the manufacturer.
Write back to LJ and claim copyright infringement. LJ doesn't have anything to lose if your ex is defaming you, but they do if you notify them they are hosting your copyrighted content without your permission.
I do feel sorry for the victim, but I disagree with the solution. Expressions of fact cannot be copyrighted. Even if they could, the companies that issue the credit card number, phone number, and so forth would hold the copyright, not him.
There are other laws, such as defamation and privacy laws, that would be more effective.
Of course, I am not a lawyer, so if any lawyers read this, feel free to contradict and chastise me.
Very cool and I hope someone from Apple is reading this - THIS IS HOW YOU GET NEW CUSTOMERS AND KEEP YOUR OLD ONES.
Heck, I hope somebody from every $EVIL_COMPANY we normally scold on Slashdot is reading this. Getting rich from treating your customers right seems so much more fun and fulfilling than taking their money just because you can.
On the other hand, I don't have much sympathy for all the parent posters complaining that they have to pay extra for the upgrade. Why pay for Panther when you know that the insanely great upgrade is coming out before July, at the latest?
PHP? I'm curious. I've never seen Xcode. How well (if at all) does it handle the typical web development languages like X(HT)ML, PHP, Perl, JavaScript, etc.?