Information rot. If copyright is tied to a specific physical device and no circumvention is allowed, that information will disappear disappear when the physical device dies. Information needs to be copied by third parties in order to be preserved for the future.
Be aware that there are already narrow exemptions for computer software tied to specific hardware, among other things. The problem you describe is broader than that, but any mention of it without acknowledging the current rules probably will be passed over as a solved problem.
Why can't someone, who owns a DVD of a movie, use Quicktime or something, and rip and encode a version for their iPod? Seems like a FAIR USE to me.
Because fair use is a defense against copyright infringement but not access control circumvention, and most DVDs are encrypted. The proposed Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act would re-legalize what you describe.
Is it ok to tape shows/music from radio/television ? More in terms of legal/copyright etc.
The US Supreme Court ruled in Sony v. Betamax (1984) that "time-shifting" (recording of transmissions for later playback) is fair use. In copyright law circles it's generally believed that "warehousing" (assembling a permanent collection of time-shifted works) is not and that the Court consciously avoided the issue. Naturally, the music and film industry associations contend that the right of time-shifting extends only to one playback, after which the copy must be destroyed.
But if they don't want SQL, then why are they using an SQL RDBMS in the first place?
It's a robust data store that isn't tied to any one application language or object model. Often, SQL per se isn't the problem, but differing dialects are.
How would you achieve this when you're so abstracted away from the SQL database?
Use a mapper with the required feature or drop down a level. Abstraction isn't all-or-nothing.
Those sort of queries are likely to look different on different RDBMSes. You could make a function that looks the same, but someone still is going to have to write the SQL for portability....
Fair use is codified in that it prohibits any unauthorized reproduction of an entire copyrighted work. It only allows excerpts to be reproduced.
A determination of fair use is made on the balance of a four factors, including the "amount and substantiality" of the alleged infringement. It is not infringement, for example, to record an entire television broadcast for later viewing (Sony v. Universal, 1984).
The Federal Home Recording Act is more empowering since it allows complete copies for purposes of making backups and porting to different media.
The Audio Home Recording Act is limited in scope and mandates access controls. Format-shifting is explicitly fair use (RIAA v. Diamond, 1999).
If at all, the clients can rsync from me, and as rsync does not run natively on windows, we can't rely on rsync, imho.
All one needs to run a Cygwin binary in general is the cygwin1.dll library. rsync in particular requires cygpopt-0.dll from the libpopt0 package. It can be daemonized with srvany.exe and instsrv.exe from the Windows 2003 Resource Kit. You might have to adjust the timestamp window to account for client time zones or the two-second resolution of FAT32, but it doesn't require exceptional wizardry.
Those links are for the final votes on CAFTA not on the resolution to include DCMA in CAFTA.
CAFTA was a congressional-executive agreement; the language was agreed by the Office of the United States Trade Representative and submitted to Congress for an up-or-down vote, no amendments. Also, amendents to a bill don't make law, the objectionable provisions aren't limited to mirroring the DMCA, and calling it "DCMA" doesn't help you to sound knowledgeable.
86% of seated Republicans voted for the bill, representing 90% of the 'aye' votes. 89% of seated Democrats voted against the bill, representing 85% of the 'nay' votes.
If they claim that the GPL is invalid, then they must not be distributing it in accordance with the GPL. If they are not distributing it in accordance with the GPL, then they have no legal justification for distributing it at all.
SCO have claimed that works licensed under the GPL are in fact public domain, that being the closest legal match to the intent of the invalid GPL. It's a crackpot theory, but the claims that they don't have even that should have been retired back in 2003.
If they rolled out a new platform that broke compatability with all the old stuff, and the only thing that really changed was the addition of TPM, don't you think the media would latch on to the real reason Apple's doing this?
I think there would be about as much compatibility-breaking and media-latching as there was when IBM, Dell, etc. started selling TPM-burdened systems, i.e. effectively nil.
The alternative would be to require that all derivative works are licensed under the GFDL. You don't have to distribute it, just have to license it.
The GFDL isn't suited to software (and, frankly, I think it makes a lousy documentation license, too). If you mean the GPL, I see where you're coming from, but without distribution there isn't anyone to license it to. The FSF could condition permission to prepare derivative works on the ability to meet the distribution requirements, regardless of whether distribution ever occurs, but they view that as contrary to their principles (but so is mandating distribution, come to think of it). It's also unnecessary in their view; read on.
If the unlinked software doesn't contain the original, then it isn't a derivative work.
A translation of a derivative work is still derivative, and what a C compiler emits when fed source with #included GPLed headers is a derivative of the GPLed work. However, it's less clear whether the headers can be copyrighted in the first place. It's generally assumed that they can, but some argue that they're ineligible for being purely descriptive--whatever creative effort goes into the writing of the functions themselves doesn't extend to purely factual documentation. This discussion quickly turns to the details of the particular case: What if the headers have inline functions? What if we're using a language that doesn't have any notion of #including headers? Congress intended there to be a standard, but the technical details that lead to a certain conclusion for C code don't apply to, say, Java.
Glad to see that GPLed software is protected by copyright only by vacuous legal threats (seriously, I am).
The GPL, like any other license, has to fit the contours of copyright law, and some of those contours don't get defined until someone tries to break them. That's the nature of the legal system.
Man you people railing against Apple cannot harp against Apple reduceing the sharing from iTunes to five users. Yet what other player even lets you share at all?
Winamp, foobar, QCD, WMP with a third-party plug-in, some Java program I can't recall at the moment, and those are just the DAAP (iTunes protocol) compatible integrated player/servers that I know of. daapd, mt-daapd, Music Publisher, and accessTunes are standalone servers, also iTunes-compatible. A network file system works about as well, too, if one's music isn't encrypted. Of course, all this is quite beside the point--the capability was there, it isn't now, and that's inconvenient.
it is thier choice to make
That's exactly the problem with lock-in.
So if Hymn meets the definition for a cirumvention device, why does it still exist? Just because something is in a questionable status does not mean it does not exist. Thus it is viable as much as you'd like to pretend it is not.
Again, the standard you set was convenience, not mere possibility. It's also possible to shoplift from FYE, not that I think the two are ethically or legally equivalent, but both come with a risk of decidedly inconvenient consequences. And make no mistake, using Hymn is about as blatant a violation of the DMCA as can be imagined. Its status is questionable only as much as that of the DMCA itself. It's still easily available because the fellow reverse-engineering the crypto is Norwegian, the fellow officially maintaining the project is Indian, and the others are so far anonymous.
You are one of the sorry lot that cannot fathom a company doing anything not for profit.
Oh, I can fathom it; it's just not in evidence here. What moral obligation to their customers causes Apple to intentionally break third-party compatibility with iPod or to make their software less capable?
The music business looked like a loosing proposition when Apple entered it, it made no sense to open a store.
It was spun as a marketing vehicle for iPods. There was always a business case.
Apple does not have to cooperate with any cartels to do what they wish; they do have to convince said cartels to go along....
Uncooperative and convincing is a difficult combination, and it seems to me Apple's changed their tune more than the publishers. It once was the party line that copyright infringement was a social problem, and DRM was a WOMBAT.
Apple's statements are indeed useful in predicting what they may or may not do....
They change whenever the business case does. They're useful in noting current direction, but assuming they're immutable is foolish.
QuickTime runs on Windows and Mac. It can be made to run on Linux, inconveniently. It won't run at all on Palm OS or Windows Mobile. Even on platforms where it will run, it limits choice of players.
Project Hymn circumvents that issue and others; the "make a real CD" option is a viable out as well as much as you harp on the negatives.
Yes, Hymn can "circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work", which unfortunately are the exact words 17 USC 1201 has right after "No one shall". Section 1203 has more unpleasant words, like "not less than $200 or more than $2,500 per act of circumvention". As for the download-burn-rip path, "viable" isn't the standard you set in your previous post; it's possible, but totally undesirable.
I choose to look at the glass being half full in that the player supports sharing at all, which most other players do not.
Half full or half empty, the level is lower than it used to be; the five-user-a-day limit was introduced in iTunes 4.7.1, and there's no reason to be thankful for that. Even that wouldn't be truly inconvenient by itself, but one isn't allowed to drink from any of the other glasses on the table.
If the sharing is really such an issue for them, then why do they still leave that feature in at all?
Because sales would drop. If sharing isn't an issue, why restrict it? It's technically harder and generated only ill will among users.
You argue that restrictions imposed have no noble principal. You ignore restrictions avoided (like no CD burning at all, or a DRM that supports track exiration) that do indicate at least some kind of guiding principal at work.
The only principle it indicates is profit; I enjoy profit, too, but there's nothing noble about it.
I am merely acknowledging the good they have done by drawing a line in the sand....
...scuffing it out, drawing another, scuffing it out, drawing another....
I am saying that at the very least, if Apple is not wholly on the side of the consumer they are not really on the side of media cartels in the way the grandparent proposed.
Great-grandparent, actually, now great-great-grandparent; it'd be simpler for us just to call him 'hacker'. Anyway, he didn't put Apple on anyone's "side"; he only suggested that for Apple to realize the goal he attributes to them, they would have to cooperate with the cartels.
I am saying that the paranoid theories I responded to make no sense in the context of what they have said, and especailly actions they have taken.
I don't agree with hacker's analysis either, but Apple's statements and actions aren't nearly as impressive or as useful in predicting the future as you perceive them.
DRM should be about the mechanism - a means of enforcing whatever terms the artist chooses, nothing more.
I see no reason why an artist "should" be able to enforce whatever terms they choose, at least not while being rewarded by the public with a copyright. It's quid pro quo, not a natural right.
What if GarageBand allowed an artist to sign his work with a DRM key he generated for himself... and attach a "share this freely" flag to it along with his public key.
It would be unnecessarily complex and bear little resemblance to the common use (positive or negative) of the term 'DRM'. Signing doesn't 'manage' anyone's 'rights', a tip jar doesn't 'manage' anyone's 'rights', and there isn't any technical way to 'enforce' free sharing. Information is naturally distributable, so no technical magic needs to be done; a middleman can always make a buck off a willing customer, and no technical magic would change that.
First of all, try actually reading that LaGrande link. It's more about protecting programs from affecting each other than any kind of DRM.
It's about preventing the 'owner' of the system from accessing the keys. Intel et al. absolutely refuse to budge on that point, and there's only one reason for such a design. Intel have been the most coy about motivation (Bill Gates, for example, has stated outright that Microsoft's closely related Palladium/NGSCB project came out of efforts to restrict music), but they've had their moments. Bottom line (literally): the user is a threat, but only if they can mount an expensive, illegal "Sophisticated local HW attack".
Secondly, it does not in any way fit with the direction Apple has chosen for DRM, which is that it exists only when it does not inconvienince the user.
Locking users into QuickTime and iPod inconveniences them. Requiring them to waste perfectly good CDs and even better time on a burn-rip cycle to unlock tracks inconveniences them. Forcing a choice between larger files and lower fidelity after unlocking inconveniences them. Changing the burning permissions, removing the ability to stream over the Internet, limiting library access to five users per day--these inconvenience users. Apple's ability to add new inconveniences at their whim inconveniences users. Maybe Apple's restrictions haven't inconvenienced you yet; there are a lot of people they haven't. Maybe it won't inconvenience you ever. There isn't any noble principle behind it, though.
Lastly, you have the basic problem that it makes no sense to have any DRm at all in the context of the apps you mention which allow me to create my own content. Why would I want to lock it? Simply put I would not; so such apps will not be supporting LaGrande.
Your claptrap posted later about Apple using LaGrande to prop up the current media moguls as "gateways of media" is simply a paranoid theory that has no basis in what they have done, what would be healthy for them as a company to do, or even what Jobs himself would like to do. Jobs has no love for the current media industry which he considers to be idiots, and in fact is cheerfully undermining them by allowing many indies equal access to iTunes.
Neither of the grandparent's posts to this story imply that Apple have any interest in sustaining the current distribution cartel, nor do either contain the phrase you 'quoted'. Apple want to replace them, but in order to get the big publishers to sign on, Apple need digital restrictions. (The largest publishers and the largest distributors are currently few and the same, but they really don't care who handles the distribution as long as they get their terms and their cut.)
Let's put that to the same test you applied to your strawman. It's consistent with Apple's categorical refusal to allow other distributors to sell iTunes/iPod-compatible restricted tracks, which they wouldn't do if they just cared about selling iPods or promoting QuickTime. If "healthy for them as a company" is a circumlocution for 'profitable', iTMS is that--not much, but increasing. On the final criterion, Jobs obviously doesn't have a problem with being a distributor for these 'idiots'.
The grandparent's claim about Apple locking all works created with Apple tools is a bit of a stretch, I agree. The "current media moguls" have floated the idea on occasion, but it doesn't seem in sync with even the new Apple. It would be wise to recognize, however, that Apple's loyalties do not lie solely with their customers.
Apple may use LaGrande for some sort of process security, but there's simply no reason to think it will be incorperated in any DRm scheme - expecially since it would not be supported by the majority of macs (PPC) in the market for years to come!
Section 2 of the GPL grants the right to prepare derivative works. Clause 2b limits that by requiring "any work that you distribute or publish" to be licensed under the GPL.
That's a pretty gaping wide hole there.
It's intentional, or at least conscious. The alternative would be to mandate publication of all derivative works. Make a one-line patch to some software you use? Congratulations, now you have to distribute the whole thing. Anything more would practically require a source code management system wired up to commit every time one saved a file.
So can't the developer just distribute the software without the GPL components, and let the end-user link in the GPLed components herself?
Yes, provided that the unlinked software isn't itself a derivative work. It's been tried before, most famously by NeXT with their ObjC GCC frontend, but apparently by nobody who's thought it worth the expense and risk of the guaranteed lawsuit.
"You do realize that doesn't work on linux don't you? No, I'm sorry grandma, that only works on a PC or a Macintosh."
I know that 'PC' has become a synonym for 'Windows', but would someone please tell me what I'm now supposed to call the hardware platform or the actual computery bits when they're not running PC?
I don't follow the BBC closely and I don't really know much about their normal news coverage. But it seems that on this one set of subjects [technology and copyright] they seem incapable of or unwilling to write a balanced article.
I've listened to World Service and read News Online for several years, and you pretty much have the lay of the land. Their technology coverage in general is spotty, but copyright articles particularly tend to be paraphrases of whatever the industry spokesbeings tell the reporters.
Is the fact that OpenOffice.org is basically run by Sun likely to be a significant factor here?
It's a vicious cycle: the second-class treatment of Mac OS within OOo drives away developers, and lack of developers perpetuates that status. The short answer is 'yes, of course', but it's not necessarily sinister or unjustified.
How can NO/J's licence preclude merging code back into OOo, if it was based on OOo in the first place? If the NO/J devs just picked up the OOo source under the GPL, surely the GPL forbids that? Did they do something weird under Sun's SISSL instead?
OOo is dual-licensed under SISSL and a mixture of GPL and LGPL. NO/J is straight GPL, which can't be relicensed under SISSL or LGPL. It would be equally accurate to say that OOo's license precludes merging code from NO/J and more precise to say that NO/J could be merged to a GPL fork of OOo, but I was giving the OOo perspective.
At the X11 layer, Apple should provide good window management,
That's the WM layer, but close enough. The only significant difference from native apps is that all X11 windows are grouped together. An 'obvious' improvement would be to create a dock icon per X11 window group, but that would demand an inconsistent menu bar policy.
clipboard integration
Already there.
keycode management
I don't know what you mean by this, but the X11 keyboard layout can be synchronized to the system layout or set independently with xmodmap.
printing
CUPS.
and a small extension that would let X11 apps access Apple-native features through the X11 protocol.
One already can hook an X11 app into Carbon and Cocoa pretty much the same way any other app does it: including the headers and calling the functions. Virtually nobody does, because most developers place a high value on either consistency with the platform (i.e., not X11) or consistency across platforms (i.e., not Carbon and Cocoa).
Getting back to the original point, though, few modern mainstream applications use X11 per se. They use cross-platform, high-level toolkits: GTK, Qt, Swing, wxWidgets, XUL, VCL, etc. It's a lot smarter to integrate platform-specific code once at the toolkit level (again: likeso) than to force hundreds or thousands of application developers to duplicate that work (even ignoring the cost to Apple).
The rest (menu bars, etc.) the Gnome and KDE developers would do if Apple's legal department only would let them.
Between this comment and your other, I have to conclude that your conception of "look and feel" is only skin deep and that you don't understand the difference between themers illegally redistributing pixmaps and developers building applications (or toolkits) on a platform. Apple hasn't acted against the Aqua ports of wxWidgets or Tk, promotes Qt/Mac for some scenarios, and maintains Java--all of which, especially the latter two, compete with Carbon and Cocoa far more than does X11.
See, that's one of the problems with Apple's X11 server: it is so big, heavy, and inefficient.
In other words, it's XFree86, what was then de facto standard desktop implementation. Get back to me after X11R7 stabilizes.
That's Apple's fault: they are putting roadblocks in the way of people trying to do a better job with X11 integration on Macintosh.... There is no technical reason why X11 couldn't be as smoothly integrated into OS X as Carbon and Cocoa are....they probably are afraid that if X11 becomes well enough integrated so that people can write applications with a native L&F, it would become the predominant API on OS X.
What you mean is that Apple isn't doing with X11 what is has with Java, which is to devote significant effort to get to the point where the simplest apps can pass for native and the rest feel like poor imitations. Unlike Java, X11 doesn't have a standard high-level graphical framework, so there's no way Apple can provide generic "X11" integration. They'd need to provide their own APIs, and toolkit developers would have to use them... oh, wait.
The OOo developers got so annoyed with Apple's behavior that they stopped working on Macintosh integration.
The OOo developers stopped working on Mac integration because it wasn't a priority for them, the NO/J developers were doing a better job of it, and NO/J's license precludes merging code from NO/J into OOo.
X11 should... run automatically on every Macintosh
This reminds me of a story, only in reverse. If I wanted X11 to load when I log in, I'd put it in my login items. I don't, because waiting longer for a usable desktop just to hide startup time for applications I may not even use wouldn't do me any good.
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Close enough for government work. Combining the House and Senate rolls, we have (yea-nay-abstaining):
Republicans: 244-39-2
Democrats: 26-220-1
Independents: 1-1-0
Total: 271-260-3 (1 vacancy)
86% of seated Republicans voted for the bill, representing 90% of the 'aye' votes. 89% of seated Democrats voted against the bill, representing 85% of the 'nay' votes.
It's about preventing the 'owner' of the system from accessing the keys. Intel et al. absolutely refuse to budge on that point, and there's only one reason for such a design. Intel have been the most coy about motivation (Bill Gates, for example, has stated outright that Microsoft's closely related Palladium/NGSCB project came out of efforts to restrict music), but they've had their moments. Bottom line (literally): the user is a threat, but only if they can mount an expensive, illegal "Sophisticated local HW attack".
Locking users into QuickTime and iPod inconveniences them. Requiring them to waste perfectly good CDs and even better time on a burn-rip cycle to unlock tracks inconveniences them. Forcing a choice between larger files and lower fidelity after unlocking inconveniences them. Changing the burning permissions, removing the ability to stream over the Internet, limiting library access to five users per day--these inconvenience users. Apple's ability to add new inconveniences at their whim inconveniences users. Maybe Apple's restrictions haven't inconvenienced you yet; there are a lot of people they haven't. Maybe it won't inconvenience you ever. There isn't any noble principle behind it, though.
Neither of the grandparent's posts to this story imply that Apple have any interest in sustaining the current distribution cartel, nor do either contain the phrase you 'quoted'. Apple want to replace them, but in order to get the big publishers to sign on, Apple need digital restrictions. (The largest publishers and the largest distributors are currently few and the same, but they really don't care who handles the distribution as long as they get their terms and their cut.)
Let's put that to the same test you applied to your strawman. It's consistent with Apple's categorical refusal to allow other distributors to sell iTunes/iPod-compatible restricted tracks, which they wouldn't do if they just cared about selling iPods or promoting QuickTime. If "healthy for them as a company" is a circumlocution for 'profitable', iTMS is that--not much, but increasing. On the final criterion, Jobs obviously doesn't have a problem with being a distributor for these 'idiots'.
The grandparent's claim about Apple locking all works created with Apple tools is a bit of a stretch, I agree. The "current media moguls" have floated the idea on occasion, but it doesn't seem in sync with even the new Apple. It would be wise to recognize, however, that Apple's loyalties do not lie solely with their customers.
That's how, not why.
One already can hook an X11 app into Carbon and Cocoa pretty much the same way any other app does it: including the headers and calling the functions. Virtually nobody does, because most developers place a high value on either consistency with the platform (i.e., not X11) or consistency across platforms (i.e., not Carbon and Cocoa).
Getting back to the original point, though, few modern mainstream applications use X11 per se. They use cross-platform, high-level toolkits: GTK, Qt, Swing, wxWidgets, XUL, VCL, etc. It's a lot smarter to integrate platform-specific code once at the toolkit level (again: like so) than to force hundreds or thousands of application developers to duplicate that work (even ignoring the cost to Apple).
Between this comment and your other, I have to conclude that your conception of "look and feel" is only skin deep and that you don't understand the difference between themers illegally redistributing pixmaps and developers building applications (or toolkits) on a platform. Apple hasn't acted against the Aqua ports of wxWidgets or Tk, promotes Qt/Mac for some scenarios, and maintains Java--all of which, especially the latter two, compete with Carbon and Cocoa far more than does X11. In other words, it's XFree86, what was then de facto standard desktop implementation. Get back to me after X11R7 stabilizes.Indiana does not have a senator on the appropriations committee; Iowa has Tom Harkin. An AC claims that the form rejects Indiana addresses.