>Right, but the difference between you and me is apparently that I actually read the articles.
And if you read *beyond the first paragraph* you'll find that the BSA is up to its old tricks of "turn in your employer"
For years the group implored unhappy employees to report their companies for software piracy. "Nail Your Boss!" the ads said. But beginning in 2005, the BSA sweetened the deal by offering $50,000 rewards to whistleblowers in the U.S. It raised the limit to $200,000 last year, and now it is $1 million.
Unlike most stuff at Fox, this goes on into quite some depth.
After an audit, the BSA generally demands at least twice the retail price of software deemed out of compliance. It also seeks the "unbundled" price of software that is sold together.
So if a company loaded too many copies of a $300 package of Microsoft Office, the BSA might tally the retail value of every element in the package Word, PowerPoint, Excel, etc. which totals more than $1,000, and then at least double that.
Rob Scott, an attorney with Scott & Scott LLP who specializes in defending against BSA claims, argues that by charging the unbundled rate, the alliance misrepresents U.S. copyright law, which counts product compilations as single works when it comes to assessing damages. (The BSA says Scott's reading misdefines "compilation.")
The BSA accurately points out that under copyright law, it could collect up to $150,000 per infringed work if it prevailed in a lawsuit, or $30,000 if the incident was unintentional. Neil MacBride, the group's head of legal affairs, calls the law's figures "draconian" and says that by seeking less, the BSA gives violators a break.
They are just _so_ generous, not going after $150,000 for that copy of Word "missing" its receipt. Not related to the thread? I think not.
I'm sure that Sterling Ball over at Ernie Ball (guitar string manufacturer) is sitting with a big grin on his face every time he reads something like this.
In 2000, the Business Software Alliance conducted a raid and subsequent audit at the San Luis Obispo, Calif.-based company that turned up a few dozen unlicensed copies of programs. Ball settled for $65,000, plus $35,000 in legal fees. But by then, the BSA, a trade group that helps enforce copyrights and licensing provisions for major business software makers, had put the company on the evening news and featured it in regional ads warning other businesses to monitor their software licenses.
Humiliated by the experience, Ball told his IT department he wanted Microsoft products out of his business within six months. "I said, 'I don't care if we have to buy 10,000 abacuses,'" recalled Ball, who recently addressed the LinuxWorld trade show. "We won't do business with someone who treats us poorly."
Some IP geolocation websites have the correct town I live in, but none had the correct street, and others, well, they put me on the opposite coast in San Diego.
One in particular had a way to "correct" it. I submitted 383212N 684648E.
... that the plane landed in Havana, the hijacker got off the plane, and everyone went around their business or it landed in Tel-Aviv, the plane on the ground, and the hijackers shot/arrested with one or two dead passengers that the hijackers had killed to show they were "serious". The passengers sat in their seats and waited it out.
Those were the days when hijackers could depend on the passivity of passengers.
With planes being flown into buildings, passengers are no longer passive. It's not the TSA that keeps planes safe, it's the passengers and crew that will beat the snot out of the latest Al-Q "martyr."
It's political speech. If there's *any* sort of speech that needs protecting, it's "controversial" political speech because mainstream political speech doesn't need protection as much. Stephen Conroy doesn't like criticism. Well, boo-hoo, cry me a river. It doesn't matter if it's "immature" or not. What's next, banning editorial cartoons that Steven doesn't like, or throwing people in prison that Steven doesn't like? He has now demonstrated that he won't stop at child pornography. This is *exactly* why Steven Conroy's "protect the children" censorship should be shouted down.
Steven Conroy is a fascist with a stick up his arse, pure and simple.
I'm in the States, and Steven Conroy makes me want to punch him.
No amount of promises from Microsoft can get me to even think about Microsoft proprietary technology in my Linux system. I am not against closed source (I use Flash), but Microsoft has been "targeting" Linux for over 10 years, and even paid for a lawsuit-by-proxy through SCO.
It's relevant because he's supposedly one "in on the science" and if he goes 'round misrepresenting the science, what are people to think? That the science is bogus? Well, yeah, and that's what we've got. I said earlier that there's been a lot of hyperbole from AGW proponents and bad movies made about AGW, and it only makes people feel like they're being bullshitted, especially when they're namecalled and condescended to when questions are asked.
Enough with the bullshit. If you want people to believe you, don't misrepresent the science, don't exaggerate, and don't trick people.
And most of all, don't deliberately make people feel stupid by doing so.
Bill Gates has seen inherited wealth lead to idleness and worse. He's determined to give away his fortune before he dies so that his descendants don't sit on their arses.
"Ironically, bad science does not make it wrong necessarily"
If you deliberately do bad science, it doesn't matter that you came to the right answer. You've discarded the trust people had in you. We don't need any more Piltdown Men.
It also didn't help that for the past 25 years we've had extreme hyperbole from far too many AGW types telling us we're turning the Earth into another Venus or that we're going to drown and then make ridiculously bad movies about it, e.g., "Waterworld".
If people had their questions answered without namecalling, condescension or "the sky is falling", most people would listen. While many scientists sneer at public relations in general and even popularist science magazines like Discover, communication is important if you don't want to sound like a pompous asshole and actually get your point across.
The head-ramrod of the East Anglia CRU comes off as a complete asshole. That's a BIG problem.
"To be fair, copyright has nothing to do with a free market; it's state sanctioned monopolies and fundamentally incompatible with a free market."
Yeah, I thought about that after my post. The publishing houses that are bent about this treaty remind me of the TARP corporate welfare recipients. "Give us stuff, but don't attach any strings, or we'll throw a fit."
Copyright as it stands now is just another form of corporate welfare. Why does an author need to keep copyright after he's in the ground? For 90 years? So his descendants can suck on the public teat of rent-seeking? It's all just another version of the Iron Triangle.
"What the copyright owners are saying is that they are trying to accomplish the same voluntarily, but oppose the imposition of statute."
Ah, yes the invisible hand of the free market. The free market doesn't serve the underserved, and with the current attitude of "maximize profits at the expense of everything and everyone else" guarantees that the underserved will continue to be underserved.
The free market hasn't solved this, and will not solve it voluntarily.
Watch me cry Glenn Beck tears for the free market. Boo. Hoo.
Sweat of the brow does not determine if something is deserving of copyright either. It must have _some_ creativity. Indeed, this is why software for years was not deserving of copyright, because it was considered a "list of instructions for a machine" instead of creative. This changed in the early 80's I believe (correct me if it was earlier).
A recipe is not copyrightable. It is a list of facts to reach a goal. The artwork, layout, etc, however, is. Thus cookbooks are copyrighted.
Software is unique in that it's now protected by both copyright, as if it's art, _and_ patent, as if it's a machine. Why one needs both is baffling to me.
Slashdot Mirror
>Right, but the difference between you and me is apparently that I actually read the articles.
And if you read *beyond the first paragraph* you'll find that the BSA is up to its old tricks of "turn in your employer"
Unlike most stuff at Fox, this goes on into quite some depth.
They are just _so_ generous, not going after $150,000 for that copy of Word "missing" its receipt. Not related to the thread? I think not.
>So I stopped after the first page, but none of those had anything to do with the OP or the subject at hand.
First link.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,312948,00.html
You lose, Pumpkin.
--
BMO
>They don't just show up and kick down your door.
Yes, they do.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=opera&rls=en&q=bsa+raid&btnG=Search
--
BMO
For those who forgot:
http://news.cnet.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.htm
And this is what the Internet does to your precious Tchaikovsky.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvYOm89IcUU
You're welcome.
--
BMO
Some IP geolocation websites have the correct town I live in, but none had the correct street, and others, well, they put me on the opposite coast in San Diego.
One in particular had a way to "correct" it. I submitted 383212N 684648E.
Tajikistan.
--
BM0
That will last exactly as long as it takes for me to take a flight.
"You want me to sit naked? OK." *strips*
TSA guy: "NO! PLEASE NO! PLEASE PUT YOUR CLOTHES BACK ON! *OH GOD MY EYES* "
--
BMO
... that the plane landed in Havana, the hijacker got off the plane, and everyone went around their business or it landed in Tel-Aviv, the plane on the ground, and the hijackers shot/arrested with one or two dead passengers that the hijackers had killed to show they were "serious". The passengers sat in their seats and waited it out.
Those were the days when hijackers could depend on the passivity of passengers.
With planes being flown into buildings, passengers are no longer passive. It's not the TSA that keeps planes safe, it's the passengers and crew that will beat the snot out of the latest Al-Q "martyr."
--
BMO
And can I have my droud back, please?
Thanks
--
BMO
Well, that sucked. There were "darth" tags around the "quote" and I lost them.
<buffett> Searching for my lost fake html </buffett>
--
BMO
The antecedent was defined in the previous sentence.
I find your lack of reading comprehension disturbing.
--
BMO
This doesn't help when you can be sued in England for blogging in Canada or anywhere else for that matter.
--
BMO
>Not in our constitution mate, as with the UK free speech in Oz is a tradition not a commandment.
Maybe it's about time that changed.
--
BMO
>I think this is somewhat justified.
No, it's not. Not in the least.
It's political speech. If there's *any* sort of speech that needs protecting, it's "controversial" political speech because mainstream political speech doesn't need protection as much. Stephen Conroy doesn't like criticism. Well, boo-hoo, cry me a river. It doesn't matter if it's "immature" or not. What's next, banning editorial cartoons that Steven doesn't like, or throwing people in prison that Steven doesn't like? He has now demonstrated that he won't stop at child pornography. This is *exactly* why Steven Conroy's "protect the children" censorship should be shouted down.
Steven Conroy is a fascist with a stick up his arse, pure and simple.
I'm in the States, and Steven Conroy makes me want to punch him.
--
BMO
No amount of promises from Microsoft can get me to even think about Microsoft proprietary technology in my Linux system. I am not against closed source (I use Flash), but Microsoft has been "targeting" Linux for over 10 years, and even paid for a lawsuit-by-proxy through SCO.
No. I'll have none of that. Fuck you.
--
BMO
What, people play games on Facebook?
I thought those were bots designed to annoy you with "gifts" and spam your friends' pages with garbage.
--
BMO
Didn't we do this in the 90's, throw a lot of money at the providers and all they did was give it out to the shareholders?
If we do this there had better be significant strings attached.
--
BMO
But it is relevant.
It's relevant because he's supposedly one "in on the science" and if he goes 'round misrepresenting the science, what are people to think? That the science is bogus? Well, yeah, and that's what we've got. I said earlier that there's been a lot of hyperbole from AGW proponents and bad movies made about AGW, and it only makes people feel like they're being bullshitted, especially when they're namecalled and condescended to when questions are asked.
Enough with the bullshit. If you want people to believe you, don't misrepresent the science, don't exaggerate, and don't trick people.
And most of all, don't deliberately make people feel stupid by doing so.
--
BMO
For this, I'll use the example of Bill Gates.
Bill Gates has seen inherited wealth lead to idleness and worse. He's determined to give away his fortune before he dies so that his descendants don't sit on their arses.
--
BMO
"Ironically, bad science does not make it wrong necessarily"
If you deliberately do bad science, it doesn't matter that you came to the right answer. You've discarded the trust people had in you. We don't need any more Piltdown Men.
It also didn't help that for the past 25 years we've had extreme hyperbole from far too many AGW types telling us we're turning the Earth into another Venus or that we're going to drown and then make ridiculously bad movies about it, e.g., "Waterworld".
If people had their questions answered without namecalling, condescension or "the sky is falling", most people would listen. While many scientists sneer at public relations in general and even popularist science magazines like Discover, communication is important if you don't want to sound like a pompous asshole and actually get your point across.
The head-ramrod of the East Anglia CRU comes off as a complete asshole. That's a BIG problem.
More Sagans, please. Less assholes.
--
BMO
"To be fair, copyright has nothing to do with a free market; it's state sanctioned monopolies and fundamentally incompatible with a free market."
Yeah, I thought about that after my post. The publishing houses that are bent about this treaty remind me of the TARP corporate welfare recipients. "Give us stuff, but don't attach any strings, or we'll throw a fit."
Copyright as it stands now is just another form of corporate welfare. Why does an author need to keep copyright after he's in the ground? For 90 years? So his descendants can suck on the public teat of rent-seeking? It's all just another version of the Iron Triangle.
You're right. Abolish it.
--
BMO
"What the copyright owners are saying is that they are trying to accomplish the same voluntarily, but oppose the imposition of statute."
Ah, yes the invisible hand of the free market. The free market doesn't serve the underserved, and with the current attitude of "maximize profits at the expense of everything and everyone else" guarantees that the underserved will continue to be underserved.
The free market hasn't solved this, and will not solve it voluntarily.
Watch me cry Glenn Beck tears for the free market. Boo. Hoo.
--
BMO
Ah yes, the entire "American" attitude of "I've got mine! Fuck you!"
Well, sir, fuck you and fuck off.
--
BMO
A protocol is simply a statement of facts.
Facts are not copyrightable.
Sweat of the brow does not determine if something is deserving of copyright either. It must have _some_ creativity. Indeed, this is why software for years was not deserving of copyright, because it was considered a "list of instructions for a machine" instead of creative. This changed in the early 80's I believe (correct me if it was earlier).
A recipe is not copyrightable. It is a list of facts to reach a goal. The artwork, layout, etc, however, is. Thus cookbooks are copyrighted.
Software is unique in that it's now protected by both copyright, as if it's art, _and_ patent, as if it's a machine. Why one needs both is baffling to me.
--
BMO
That's what Windows users always said about Opera and Mozilla tabs.
The Microsoft put tabs in IE7 and 8.
WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?
--
BMO