You probably can't set different limits for individual versus corporate copyrights, at least not when dealing with such short lengths. Otherwise, there's no reason a corporation can't enter into an abusive contract with an artist where the artist technically "owns" the copyright, but assigns all revenue and royalties to the corporation. Which is pretty much how it works now, with just a little less efficiency. If corps get 5 years and individuals get 20, a few extra paragraphs in the contract are a great tradeoff for quadrupling the control period.
Yeah, you can write in all kinds of limits into copyright law to block abusive relationships, but there's always a loophole, and corporations are basically loophole-exploitation machines.
The reason we have the situation we have now is that individual artists just don't have the same resources as a major corporation and are willing to give up control for a steady paycheck (which they still get screwed out of, but it's the thought that counts). That's changing, but until the balance of power shifts, corporations will set the terms of the relationship.
> Given that the aim of the toolkit is supposedly to > >...help identify students who were downloading/sharing movie files... > then how do they manage it without examining traffic?
We're talking about the wonderful corporations who brought us fine tech documentaries such as "War Games", "Hackers", "The Net" and "Jurassic Park". I'm sure their expert technical advisors are simply unable to effectively communicate the details to mere normals such as ourselves.
I think the comment was a sort of "yet another 'me too' product, markets rejoice. Consistent failure to handle major security problems in flagship product, markets... meh?"
But, then, Oracle's poor security track record (they certainly redefined "unbreakable") isn't anything new and I'd hope that both markets and customers have long ago corrected for it.
Unless they're talking about something significantly outside the progression we've accepted as Moore's Law. We've come to accept that a super-computer is normally a collection of hundreds of bleeding edge processors. So if they're talking about a handheld ten years from now which is perhaps 1024*(2^(240/18)) times more powerful than a single current bleeding edge CPU, then they could be justified in calling it a super-computer.
They may also be using super-computer to describe a system fast enough that it doesn't need an upgrade to run whatever Carmack pushes out at the time.
Funny thing about playing whack-a-mole on the Internet... the moles get bigger, bring lawyers, and carry their own mallets.
They acted like dicks (hint: if first contact involves lawyers, you're a dick) towards someone who, had they approached nicely, might have been willing to cooperate. Now they've moved their problem to an organized group who already knows how to deal with these sorts of things and isn't likely to back down against empty threats.
> I can't imagine what a pathetic and aggressive loser you have to be to think that > somebody should pay $3.6m as restitution for letting somebody copy 24 songs
Well, I would have pushed for the max penalty if the jury actually decided on "guilty". Which, given the instructions they had, they pretty much had to.
The problem is that $220k plus legal fees is a number she could conceivably pay back; it's in the ballpark of a standard mortgage, right? It's a number many/most people can relate to. Whether it's justified for what she did is secondary. She went against big money, lied through her teeth, and got her butt kicked. This is not a huge surprise, and it's not going to get the average person pissed off.
Not. Good. Enough.
$3.6m, on the other hand, is just outright insane, obviously abusive, and very clearly sends the message I'd want to send about statuatory copyright damages. And the record industry did say they wanted the jury to send a message. It'll get average people pissed off, get a pile of mainstream press, get a load of sympathy, possibly get politicians off their collective hemarroids, and generally stir things up.
Of course, the people on this particular jury were probably just "patheric and agressive losers", but you just never know...
> i, for one, would prefer the newest single by britney spears in a totally unplayable format.
I think you might have to settle for completely unlistenable. If you're really lucky, they might make it a Zune-only release.
Unfortunately, that'll be accompanied by a mental image of Steve Ballmer, on-stage, Zune in hand, monkey dancing (TM) to Britney Spears. Microsoft: you thought it couldn't get worse.
> This is the first Groklaw article I've read and if this hyperbole is typical of its offerings > I'm amazed so many people listen to it.
As with slashdot, you gotta pick and choose.
Groklaw's articles following the SCO lawsuits are second to none. Okay, the lawyers and judges involved might have better seats, but otherwise you want to go with Groklaw. A bit of bias, sure, the odd bit of self-referential hyperbole, but generally things are well done.
Groklaw's coverage of more general "community" issues... I really don't have anything good to say about how it's done. I pretty much ignore it (sometimes it links to better stuff), and suggest you do the same.
> Obviously, laws like this apply to the people in the country, not to people of a > certain nationality.
I know. I just thought it was a better question than "what's with the lousy slashdot headline?"
It does raise the question about what they're going to do about images taken outside of Canada being shown to Canadians, and whether they'd really be breaking the law for showing uncensored pictures of Canadians in Canada to non-Canadians (i.e. does privacy law kick in when the pictures are taken, or when they're viewed). TFA was a little weak on that stuff...
does that mean you could buy blank media from Canada from another country and distribute whatever you want on it, claiming that you paid the copyright fee by virtue of the Canadian tariff
In similar fashion, does Canadian privacy law extend to non-Canadian citizens buying DRMed items?
Absolutely. Canadian law applies to everyone, anywhere in the world. We're generous that way.
Unfortunately, unlike certain other countries, we do have some logistical issues with enforcing our laws outside the Canadian border.
We can offer you some really nice red and white "Get out of jail free, eh" cards. You have a colour printer handy?
> Is it legally different, then up/downloading the entire file from the same source?
Ask a lawyer. Better yet, ask a judge.
I figure it depends on several things:
(a) is it legal to download in the first place? If not, how'd you get enough to upload pieces? (b) can someone prove they got the entire file from you (i.e. an RIAA investigator actually doing some investigating using a hacked client which only uses a single source), or can you prove you never distributed the whole file to someone else? (c) how much do you need to send before its considered distribution, anyways? (d) are you rich/crazy enough that you'll argue the point in court when "they" come for you"?
In Canada, (a) is _probably_ okay. The rest is iffy.
Second, while downloading is generally accepted to be legal (even before this crap), uploading may still fall under distribution, which isn't. We've had a judge question that (with logic along the lines of "there can't be a download without an upload, so if the download is legal..."), but there's been nothing conclusive.
The idea with physical copies, for example, is that it's legal if I lend you a CD, you make a copy for personal use, and I get my CD back. However, I can't make the copy and distribute it to you.
So, speaking as a Canadian, we'd much prefer if you folks south of the border take all the risks of uploading.
> Why don't NBC's stockholders revolt against the kind of mismanagement
Well, it's a whole lot like US presidential elections. The stockholders have a choice between a moron with a degree from Yale, a moron with a degree from Harvard, a lunatic who claims "profit isn't everything", and a monkey with a lot of inherited shares.
Now, if you ask me "why did NBC stockholders vote for the monkey?", I'm afraid I don't have a good answer.
> However, the city makes way more money from parking tickets than from parking meters.
Right... So removing the meters from in front of the Apple store and replacing them with "No Parking" signs is going to somehow reduce the opportunity to hand out tickets?
Are we talking about the same Montreal? I'm thinking of the one full of Quebecois motorists.
> But is there a moral difference between not downloading the ad vs. not seeing the ad?
To use industry language, it's the difference between theft and fraud.
However, since we're talking about morality in the context of the advertising industry, both are roughly equivalent to helping old ladies carry their groceries.
Patents apply to commercial exploitation, irrespective of the who/what that's doing the exploiting (okay, there might be exceptions for some governments).
Suing an average individual for patent infringement is obviously economically stupid (if they don't settle immediately, you don't have a chance at getting your court costs back, much less damages), but making money isn't the only reason for a lawsuit.
> Okay, let's say Microsoft decides to sue Linus Torvalds over its FAT filesystem patent.
Most likely, Linus goes bankrupt during the opening motion practice and/or is forced to settle. The court never gets around to calculating damages.
Messing with the damage formula only benefits large corporations who, up until now, were looking at damages in the hundreds of millions and weren't overly concerned by hundreds of thousands in court costs. Patent trolls won't get as much money, and everyone else is still screwed as soon as the lawsuit is filed.
It's worth noting that HMV is not Canadian owned, nor does the Henderson and the CRIA represent many Canadian labels.
In other words, this is yet another sleazy tactic by outsiders to "convince" the Canadian government to adjust copyright law in a way that wouldn't benefit the average Canadian.
He seems to be under the impression that WGA is a service Microsoft provides to Windows users.
It isn't.
WGA is a service which Microsoft provides to themselves, in order to protect themselves from said Windows users (AKA thieves).
If the main purpose is to protect your profit center, a 19 hour (or 72, or 30 day) outtage where the failure mode is "more protection" strikes me as perfectly reasonable. It's not like "pissing off customers" has ever been considered a liability in Redmond.
Sucks to be a Windows user, though. Should have got some sort of service agreement, I guess.
Slashdot Mirror
You probably can't set different limits for individual versus corporate copyrights, at least not when dealing with such short lengths. Otherwise, there's no reason a corporation can't enter into an abusive contract with an artist where the artist technically "owns" the copyright, but assigns all revenue and royalties to the corporation. Which is pretty much how it works now, with just a little less efficiency. If corps get 5 years and individuals get 20, a few extra paragraphs in the contract are a great tradeoff for quadrupling the control period.
Yeah, you can write in all kinds of limits into copyright law to block abusive relationships, but there's always a loophole, and corporations are basically loophole-exploitation machines.
The reason we have the situation we have now is that individual artists just don't have the same resources as a major corporation and are willing to give up control for a steady paycheck (which they still get screwed out of, but it's the thought that counts). That's changing, but until the balance of power shifts, corporations will set the terms of the relationship.
c.
Yes, but on the keyboard they're going to use to write a report to Bush, 'W' is pretty darn close to the 'A'.
We can only hope the CIA has switched to Dvorak.
c.
> Given that the aim of the toolkit is supposedly to ...help identify students who were downloading/sharing movie files...
> >
> then how do they manage it without examining traffic?
We're talking about the wonderful corporations who brought us fine tech documentaries such as "War Games", "Hackers", "The Net" and "Jurassic Park". I'm sure their expert technical advisors are simply unable to effectively communicate the details to mere normals such as ourselves.
c.
I think the comment was a sort of "yet another 'me too' product, markets rejoice. Consistent failure to handle major security problems in flagship product, markets... meh?"
But, then, Oracle's poor security track record (they certainly redefined "unbreakable") isn't anything new and I'd hope that both markets and customers have long ago corrected for it.
c.
> Since the RIAA (for example) catches torrenters by downloading the file from them
Actually, evidence so far indicates that the RIAA doesn't seem to bother downloading anything.
c.
> Isn't a super-computer a relative term?
Yup.
Unless they're talking about something significantly outside the progression we've accepted as Moore's Law. We've come to accept that a super-computer is normally a collection of hundreds of bleeding edge processors. So if they're talking about a handheld ten years from now which is perhaps 1024*(2^(240/18)) times more powerful than a single current bleeding edge CPU, then they could be justified in calling it a super-computer.
They may also be using super-computer to describe a system fast enough that it doesn't need an upgrade to run whatever Carmack pushes out at the time.
c.
Funny thing about playing whack-a-mole on the Internet... the moles get bigger, bring lawyers, and carry their own mallets.
They acted like dicks (hint: if first contact involves lawyers, you're a dick) towards someone who, had they approached nicely, might have been willing to cooperate. Now they've moved their problem to an organized group who already knows how to deal with these sorts of things and isn't likely to back down against empty threats.
> > gold ultimate handjob elite
> I haven't had one of those in years.
Of course not. After 9/11, they replaced with with the terrorist super anal probe extra.
> I can't imagine what a pathetic and aggressive loser you have to be to think that
> somebody should pay $3.6m as restitution for letting somebody copy 24 songs
Well, I would have pushed for the max penalty if the jury actually decided on "guilty". Which, given the instructions they had, they pretty much had to.
The problem is that $220k plus legal fees is a number she could conceivably pay back; it's in the ballpark of a standard mortgage, right? It's a number many/most people can relate to. Whether it's justified for what she did is secondary. She went against big money, lied through her teeth, and got her butt kicked. This is not a huge surprise, and it's not going to get the average person pissed off.
Not. Good. Enough.
$3.6m, on the other hand, is just outright insane, obviously abusive, and very clearly sends the message I'd want to send about statuatory copyright damages. And the record industry did say they wanted the jury to send a message. It'll get average people pissed off, get a pile of mainstream press, get a load of sympathy, possibly get politicians off their collective hemarroids, and generally stir things up.
Of course, the people on this particular jury were probably just "patheric and agressive losers", but you just never know...
c.
> i, for one, would prefer the newest single by britney spears in a totally unplayable format.
I think you might have to settle for completely unlistenable. If you're really lucky, they might make it a Zune-only release.
Unfortunately, that'll be accompanied by a mental image of Steve Ballmer, on-stage, Zune in hand, monkey dancing (TM) to Britney Spears. Microsoft: you thought it couldn't get worse.
c.
> This is the first Groklaw article I've read and if this hyperbole is typical of its offerings
> I'm amazed so many people listen to it.
As with slashdot, you gotta pick and choose.
Groklaw's articles following the SCO lawsuits are second to none. Okay, the lawyers and judges involved might have better seats, but otherwise you want to go with Groklaw. A bit of bias, sure, the odd bit of self-referential hyperbole, but generally things are well done.
Groklaw's coverage of more general "community" issues... I really don't have anything good to say about how it's done. I pretty much ignore it (sometimes it links to better stuff), and suggest you do the same.
c.
> Obviously, laws like this apply to the people in the country, not to people of a
> certain nationality.
I know. I just thought it was a better question than "what's with the lousy slashdot headline?"
It does raise the question about what they're going to do about images taken outside of Canada being shown to Canadians, and whether they'd really be breaking the law for showing uncensored pictures of Canadians in Canada to non-Canadians (i.e. does privacy law kick in when the pictures are taken, or when they're viewed). TFA was a little weak on that stuff...
c.
License plates shouldn't be a problem, but how does the algorithm know Canadians from non-Canadians?
Absolutely. Canadian law applies to everyone, anywhere in the world. We're generous that way.
Unfortunately, unlike certain other countries, we do have some logistical issues with enforcing our laws outside the Canadian border.
We can offer you some really nice red and white "Get out of jail free, eh" cards. You have a colour printer handy?
c.
c.
Nice. Real subtle. While you're at it, why not ask god to slap an "I did it!" tattoo on their forehead, too.
c.
> Is it legally different, then up/downloading the entire file from the same source?
Ask a lawyer. Better yet, ask a judge.
I figure it depends on several things:
(a) is it legal to download in the first place? If not, how'd you get enough to upload pieces?
(b) can someone prove they got the entire file from you (i.e. an RIAA investigator actually doing some investigating using a hacked client which only uses a single source), or can you prove you never distributed the whole file to someone else?
(c) how much do you need to send before its considered distribution, anyways?
(d) are you rich/crazy enough that you'll argue the point in court when "they" come for you"?
In Canada, (a) is _probably_ okay. The rest is iffy.
c.
Unfortunately, it's not that simple.
First, it only covers music.
Second, while downloading is generally accepted to be legal (even before this crap), uploading may still fall under distribution, which isn't. We've had a judge question that (with logic along the lines of "there can't be a download without an upload, so if the download is legal..."), but there's been nothing conclusive.
The idea with physical copies, for example, is that it's legal if I lend you a CD, you make a copy for personal use, and I get my CD back. However, I can't make the copy and distribute it to you.
So, speaking as a Canadian, we'd much prefer if you folks south of the border take all the risks of uploading.
c.
> Why don't NBC's stockholders revolt against the kind of mismanagement
Well, it's a whole lot like US presidential elections. The stockholders have a choice between a moron with a degree from Yale, a moron with a degree from Harvard, a lunatic who claims "profit isn't everything", and a monkey with a lot of inherited shares.
Now, if you ask me "why did NBC stockholders vote for the monkey?", I'm afraid I don't have a good answer.
c.
> However, the city makes way more money from parking tickets than from parking meters.
Right... So removing the meters from in front of the Apple store and replacing them with "No Parking" signs is going to somehow reduce the opportunity to hand out tickets?
Are we talking about the same Montreal? I'm thinking of the one full of Quebecois motorists.
c.
> But is there a moral difference between not downloading the ad vs. not seeing the ad?
To use industry language, it's the difference between theft and fraud.
However, since we're talking about morality in the context of the advertising industry, both are roughly equivalent to helping old ladies carry their groceries.
c.
Patents apply to commercial exploitation, irrespective of the who/what that's doing the exploiting (okay, there might be exceptions for some governments).
Suing an average individual for patent infringement is obviously economically stupid (if they don't settle immediately, you don't have a chance at getting your court costs back, much less damages), but making money isn't the only reason for a lawsuit.
c.
> Okay, let's say Microsoft decides to sue Linus Torvalds over its FAT filesystem patent.
Most likely, Linus goes bankrupt during the opening motion practice and/or is forced to settle. The court never gets around to calculating damages.
Messing with the damage formula only benefits large corporations who, up until now, were looking at damages in the hundreds of millions and weren't overly concerned by hundreds of thousands in court costs. Patent trolls won't get as much money, and everyone else is still screwed as soon as the lawsuit is filed.
c.
It's worth noting that HMV is not Canadian owned, nor does the Henderson and the CRIA represent many Canadian labels.
In other words, this is yet another sleazy tactic by outsiders to "convince" the Canadian government to adjust copyright law in a way that wouldn't benefit the average Canadian.
Assholes.
c.
He seems to be under the impression that WGA is a service Microsoft provides to Windows users.
It isn't.
WGA is a service which Microsoft provides to themselves, in order to protect themselves from said Windows users (AKA thieves).
If the main purpose is to protect your profit center, a 19 hour (or 72, or 30 day) outtage where the failure mode is "more protection" strikes me as perfectly reasonable. It's not like "pissing off customers" has ever been considered a liability in Redmond.
Sucks to be a Windows user, though. Should have got some sort of service agreement, I guess.
c.