Not really. The argument about the AACS key was not that the number itself was copyrighted, but rather that the number was the means to circumvent the protection measures controlling access to a copyrighted work. Thus, distribution of the number was a violation of the DMCA.
Anyway, you can only get copyright on the _expression_ of an idea, not on the idea itself. In other words, you get copyright on the difference between the expression and the idea itself. When the product of two large prime numbers is used as a key for copyright protection, the key _has_ to be exactly that number. No other number will do. So there is zero "expression" beyond the idea itself, so no possibility of copyright.
TI could have used an implementation where some text of exactly 512 bytes must be present, which must pass a spelling checker and grammar checker without complaints, and the lowest bit of each character is used to form a 512 bit key. Then the 512 byte text could be protected by copyright. You would have to create a different text with identical lowest bits of each character instead of copying it.
Exactly, on the internet nobody knows you're a dog (or a girl!). If there is some sort of glass ceiling on FOSS projects, then I don't see how it is supposed to work.
Why didn't you write
Exactly, on the internet nobody knows you're a dog (or a boy!).
I'd take this is a reasonably harmless example of sexism, but quite clear proof that sexism exists, and sexist persons are not even aware of it.
Clicking "yes" is not the same as saying yes, because: you're not saying it to anyone. You're not communicating. An agreement is something that happens between two parties, not a person and themselves, or a person and their own non-networked computer.
The agreement or non-agreement comes from the total of your behaviour. If you click "I agree" by mistake, but then don't install the software, then your action of not installing the software indicates quite clearly that you haven't agreed. If your cat jumps on the mouse button, you haven't agreed. If you wait patiently for your cat to jump on the mouse button (assuming your cat likes playing with your computer mouse), and you install the software as soon as the cat clicked "I agree", you have agreed even though you never clicked the button yourself. If you hack the installer to install the software without clicking "I agree", I guess it is your choice whether you actually agreed or committed an act of copyright infringement, and quite likely a DMCA violation.
Now if for some reason you ended up in a court, that would be a civil court, where preponderance of evidence counts. So if the seller can prove that the "I agree" button was indeed clicked, but you claim that his happened by accident and you can prove that the software was never installed, then it is more likely that you didn't agree. If the seller can prove that the software was installed, then it is more likely that you agreed.
It's a demand that you either click "I agree" on or you lose value of what you purchased. You are being coerced. The "value" is being held hostage after it has already been paid for.
According to the UCITA, you can't legally agree to any license terms unless you can see the license, and the seller offers you your money back. If the seller doesn't offer you the money back, the situation is a bit complicated. The seller holds your money hostage, you hold the software hostage. Losing your money is wrong. Using the software without agreeing to the license is wrong. According to the UCITA, a court (and you, if you decide to use the software), would have to decide which is the bigger wrong, so you would be Ok in using the software without agreeing to the license as long as the damage to the seller isn't much bigger than your damage in losing the money.
Let's say hypothetically some software is sold with a "home use" license for $20 and a "commercial use" license for $2000. If a company buys a "home use" license for $20, finds they can't agree to the "home use" license, and is refused a refund of their $20, they wouldn't have the right to use it. If you buy the same software with the intent to use it at home, find some term in the license that you don't like, and are refused a refund, it is likely Ok for you to use the software at home.
Not only must they be legibly available, either the product itself or the party selling it to you must actively inform you that there is a general terms of business applicable to the product. So when you go to the shop and pick up a copy of Vista, the click-through EULA you need to accept to install isn't worth anything unless either the box or the sales clerk made its contents available to you before or at the moment of purchase.
Courts have said otherwise. To be more precise, the contract between you and the manufacturer isn't completed when you hand over your money if the manufacturer said there were other conditions. In case of a click-through license, the manufacturer may have to tell you that acceptance of the license is necessary to close the deal, and then the deal is closed when you click the "I agree" button. For this to be legal, the terms must be available and clearly visible to you at the time you click "I agree", and the manufacturer must give you the right to get your money back if you don't agree.
A contract, including a sales contract, is entered when both sides agree to it. If the seller didn't make clear to you that he requests that you agree to the license, then both of you haven't entered a sales contract. So nothing in the license agreement is binding to you, on the other hand you don't have the right to use the software, on the third hand you have the right to get your money back in exchange for returning the software.
You might want to read the referenced article. It states "The USB Implementers Forum has finally responded to Palm's complaints that Apple is violating its USB-IF Membership Agreement by preventing the Pre from syncing with iTunes."
Your quote is very easy to misunderstand, whether that is intentionally, I don't know. I'll spell it out a bit clearer:
Palm has complained to the USB Implementers Forum. Palm claims that Apple prevents the Pre from syncing with iTunes (which we know is true). Palm also claims that by doing so, Apple is violating its USB-IF Membership Agreement. The USB Implementers Forum has finally responded to Palm's complaint.
What you haven't quoted is what the article further said: The USB IF's answer was that Palm is violating _its_ membership agreement by shipping hardware that pretends to be an iPod made by Apple.
Apple regularly boast they're #1 and the dominant supply of digital music, to the media, to the market and to consumers. They are the monopoly when it comes to portable music players and purchases, at least in the US.
Digital music has more than 99% market share, very few LPs and tape cassettes are sold nowadays. Of that digital music, the huge majority is still sold in the form of CDs. Apple's market share in digital music isn't more than 20% in the USA, and less elsewhere. But music sales are irrelevant to the situation here anyway, because it doesn't make the slightest difference here whether all your music is downloaded from the iTunes Music Store, from Amazon, ripped from your own CDs, or whether your music is 100% illegal downloads.
But even whether Apple has a monopoly in portable music players doesn't matter. Apple doesn't have to help competitors, they just wouldn't be allowed to hinder competitors. And they don't. You can see this from the fact that RIMM has created an application to sync music from an iTunes library to their Blackberrys. There is nothing from stopping anyone to create their own sync software, or from creating their own music player cum sync software. And judging by the constant moaning about iTunes on Windows, creating something that is better at least on Windows with its 90% market share should be childs play. There is this application called Windows Media Player which is shipped with every single copy of Windows.
Please guys, mod him down for not knowing what he is talking about.
The iTunes database is available in plain straightforward XML format. On a Macintosh, you can read that database with two lines of code and get either an NSDictionary* or a CFDictionaryRef; the code for CFDictionaryRef is part of Core Foundation and open sourced. That database contains _everything_ about your iTunes Library. The music files are plain MP3 or AAC files. Apple wrote software that can sync the iTunes Library to Apple hardware, Palm can do the same for their own hardware.
Really? Why don't you try to sell your legal copy of Rosetta Stone on eBay, and let us know how that works out for you. BTW: you might also want to look into the Apple v Psystar case.
There is a substantial difference between the two cases. Vernor used to (don't know if he still does it) buy copies of software cheaply, and then sold them on eBay. He didn't use the software, he didn't install it, he took the box that he bought and sold it on. The buyer has all rights and license obligations that he would have if he bought from Autodesk correctly. In the Psystar case, if Psystar bought boxes with MacOS X and sold them on and didn't do anything else, Apple couldn't do anything about that for the same reason. Of course they do a lot more; they even admitted creating a master copy that is installed on all computers they sell.
Say you have a Dell computer and you mention that you would like to run MacOS X on it, and somebody buys a box with MacOS X as a birthday present for you, first sale doctrine first allows them to give the box to you. You then don't have the right to install it on your Dell computer, because the license doesn't allow it, but you have the right to sell the box on eBay, and the buyer can then install it on a Macintosh but nowhere else.
The judge in Vernor vs. Autodesk also managed that it looks quite likely that some people selling their Autodesk boxes to Vernor had been in violation of their license agreements, but that had nothing to do with Vernor, and Autodesk would be free to sue those people. For example, if someone bought an upgrade to Autodesk at a reduced price, and then sold the old version to Vernor.
Seriously, what moron had to post this article here. Enter "Autodesk Vernor" into Google, and you will find that the case has been already decided more than a year ago, and Autodesk lost.
Who buys a computer at a supermarket?
I did. Needed a PC for someone with little money, I get more information from reading what's written on the box than any sales person in any computer shop could ever give me, compared to prices advertised on the internet, compared to prices in other stores, and found it was the best value for money. With the added bonus that they don't have sales people who pretend that they know anything about computers.
A good one, and not without logic: If you take software licensed under the GPL, modify it, remove all the traces of the GPL and sell it on claiming that you wrote it, then this is an act of counterfeiting. Yes, that makes sense.
I'm new to GPL; Do I misunderstand? You aren't required to release everything that links to GPL libraries, right? Just any changes you make to the libraries themselves? Couldn't you continue to keep your shareware source closed, even if you use a GPL library?
I am not a lawyer, but I can tell you that if you want to use someone else's code, no matter what the license, in your own product, then you better read the license very carefully and don't rely on posts on Slashdot. Asking a lawyer might be a good idea
That said, if you use a library that is licensed under GPL and not dual licensed, then you cannot publish your code except under the GPL license. That's it. There are libraries published under the LGPL, which has different rules.
For example: the good Indiana Jones movies have a lot of Nazis and swastikas in them. Did they have to be editted for this ban?
If you intend that your movie makes money on the German market, you plan ahead: The mirror image of the swastika is allowed, and most Americans wouldn't notice the difference, so you can use it freely and generously.
I think the issue is with where to draw the line. Obviously, someone shouldn't be allowed to fly the flag of Nazi Germany outside their house, as that would be extremely intimidating to anyone living nearby who belongs to any of the groups Nazis don't like. By banning the swastika nearly outright, they avoid situations where someone could claim it was there for some artistic, ironic reason.
Actually, it wouldn't be intimidating. If you tried this (and it was legal), I can guarantee that the flag, the flagpole, the garden fence, your windows and many other things would be gone very soon.
Apple is using capabilities of the USB spec to disable interoperation with other manufacturers' equipment for what is clearly purely anticompetitive reasons. Don't you think it's a little late to "keep business politics out of this"?
You are confusing "competitive" with "anti-competitive".
Clearly Apple allows Palm to compete with iTunes. There is nothing that stops Palm from competing. For example, the Blackberry comes with software that allows it to sync with music that is managed by iTunes, and on the Macintosh it takes a huge total of two lines of code to read the iTunes database, which contains the exact contents of each playlist and the exact location of each music file in the playlist. It is up to Palm to make syncing with iTunes managed music as easy as Apple makes it for iPod users.
So Apple spend lots of effort on the iPod and the iTunes music player. All it is asking Palm is to compete by putting equal effort into the Palm Pre and a music player or syncing software.
Who many lines in OpenMP to implement something like "do this task in a background thread at low priority, and when it's done, do that task in the UI thread"? In GCD it is two lines.
Can Facebook simply provide the source code in obfuscated form? As long as the compiler can parse it then it counts as source code right?
Of course not. It is not about compiling the code. It is about looking at the source code and finding out whether it does things that are covered by the patent. Obfuscating would make that impossible.
Current Windows DRM scheme: You have an encrypted music file, and you have a key file. The software sends the key file to a server, which checks the key file, and if it is valid, it returns a key that can be used to play the music or video. The problem is that the DRM has to prevent you from copying the key file, and that is difficult.
With this scheme: You still have an encrypted music file, and a key file. The software still sends the key file to a server, which checks it and returns the key. Two differences: They don't mind if you copy the key. And anyone in possession of a key can click on a button which sends the key to a server, which takes note that this key is now invalid, but sends a fresh key back to that person. The effect:
1. You can backup the key files without problems and restore them on another computer if the first one crashes.
2. You can copy the key files to all your computers at home, at work etc.
3. You can sell your DRM'd music without problems. Just tell the purchaser to get new key files.
4. You can share with good friends.
5. You can't share with the world, because some greedy bastard will grab it.
Number 1 to 4 would be what you reasonably want, probably exceeding what the RIAA would want to give you. Number 5 would be what you shouldn't do anyway. The DRM would be a lot easier, because all it has to do is to design key files that cannot be generated except by the copyright owner, and keep the actual encryption key safe while the music is being played.
What they parties denying any DMCA takedown notices aren't saying is that they didn't threaten any potential action under the DMCA. It is just as likely that Flickr was responding to a threat of a DMCA takedown notice. If this is the case, then no one is telling any lies except for Flickr... and even in that case it's not a complete lie. But they do need to tell precisely who demanded that the material be removed or else they will lose in the public opinion of them.
You can't threaten with a DMCA takedown notice. A DMCA takedown notice is absolutely no problem for an ISP, all they have to do is check whether all the necessary elements are there (what material is allegedly copied, where can the copy be found, who is the copyright owner, who is its agent, how can the agent be contacted), take down the material, send a copy of the request to the person uploading the material, that's it. How would that be threatening?
And then mosey on up to that tailpipe, breathe deeply, and enjoy that score 1 out of 10 (10 is best, 1 is just barely legal to sell) EPA emissions rating.
Looks like you're measuring differently in the USA than in the UK. My car tax is based on CO2 emissions, and the 2008 and 2009 models of my Diesel car cost £35 car tax per year. The smallest petrol engine will cost £120 or more.
Cell phone triangulation just adds to this data and improves your accuracy and availability.
That's not what it does.
Every satellite transmits at exactly 1 MHz, but you receive it at a frequency that depends on your exact position, the exact time and the exact position of the satellite due to the doppler effect. When you turn the GPS on, it doesn't have a clue where it is because it doesn't receive any satellites, so the first thing it has to do is to scan the whole frequency band until it finds some satellites. That takes time.
With cell phone triangulation, the GPS knows a rough position and time very very quickly. With that rough position it can calculate which satellites are roughly where, and on which frequency they should be received. So it doesn't scan the whole frequency band, but only the frequencies where the satellites actually are. Therefore, the assisted GPS finds its satellites much quicker. Once it has the satellites, cell phone data is completely irrelevant because it is so much less accurate.
I don't know a lot about the intricacies of the legal system, but why is the client penalized for the behavior or mistakes of the attorney? Does the client dictate or approve every word that comes out of the attorneys mouth in court? If the attorney used misleading wording then shouldn't the attorney be censured or fined and not have that penalty included in the actual judgment?
It happens because it is the client who hired the lawyer. If you do something wrong while acting for your company, the company will quite likely be held responsible for what you do. Same with the lawyer. There is always the possibility to sue your lawyers in a situation like this, if you think that they were reckless or guilty for you losing the money. Let's say if your lawyer appears in court drunk and you lose the case because of that, you might very well have grounds to sue.
Slashdot Mirror
Not really. The argument about the AACS key was not that the number itself was copyrighted, but rather that the number was the means to circumvent the protection measures controlling access to a copyrighted work. Thus, distribution of the number was a violation of the DMCA.
Anyway, you can only get copyright on the _expression_ of an idea, not on the idea itself. In other words, you get copyright on the difference between the expression and the idea itself. When the product of two large prime numbers is used as a key for copyright protection, the key _has_ to be exactly that number. No other number will do. So there is zero "expression" beyond the idea itself, so no possibility of copyright.
TI could have used an implementation where some text of exactly 512 bytes must be present, which must pass a spelling checker and grammar checker without complaints, and the lowest bit of each character is used to form a 512 bit key. Then the 512 byte text could be protected by copyright. You would have to create a different text with identical lowest bits of each character instead of copying it.
Exactly, on the internet nobody knows you're a dog (or a girl!). If there is some sort of glass ceiling on FOSS projects, then I don't see how it is supposed to work.
Why didn't you write
Exactly, on the internet nobody knows you're a dog (or a boy!).
I'd take this is a reasonably harmless example of sexism, but quite clear proof that sexism exists, and sexist persons are not even aware of it.
Clicking "yes" is not the same as saying yes, because: you're not saying it to anyone. You're not communicating. An agreement is something that happens between two parties, not a person and themselves, or a person and their own non-networked computer.
The agreement or non-agreement comes from the total of your behaviour. If you click "I agree" by mistake, but then don't install the software, then your action of not installing the software indicates quite clearly that you haven't agreed. If your cat jumps on the mouse button, you haven't agreed. If you wait patiently for your cat to jump on the mouse button (assuming your cat likes playing with your computer mouse), and you install the software as soon as the cat clicked "I agree", you have agreed even though you never clicked the button yourself. If you hack the installer to install the software without clicking "I agree", I guess it is your choice whether you actually agreed or committed an act of copyright infringement, and quite likely a DMCA violation.
Now if for some reason you ended up in a court, that would be a civil court, where preponderance of evidence counts. So if the seller can prove that the "I agree" button was indeed clicked, but you claim that his happened by accident and you can prove that the software was never installed, then it is more likely that you didn't agree. If the seller can prove that the software was installed, then it is more likely that you agreed.
It's a demand that you either click "I agree" on or you lose value of what you purchased. You are being coerced. The "value" is being held hostage after it has already been paid for.
According to the UCITA, you can't legally agree to any license terms unless you can see the license, and the seller offers you your money back. If the seller doesn't offer you the money back, the situation is a bit complicated. The seller holds your money hostage, you hold the software hostage. Losing your money is wrong. Using the software without agreeing to the license is wrong. According to the UCITA, a court (and you, if you decide to use the software), would have to decide which is the bigger wrong, so you would be Ok in using the software without agreeing to the license as long as the damage to the seller isn't much bigger than your damage in losing the money.
Let's say hypothetically some software is sold with a "home use" license for $20 and a "commercial use" license for $2000. If a company buys a "home use" license for $20, finds they can't agree to the "home use" license, and is refused a refund of their $20, they wouldn't have the right to use it. If you buy the same software with the intent to use it at home, find some term in the license that you don't like, and are refused a refund, it is likely Ok for you to use the software at home.
Not only must they be legibly available, either the product itself or the party selling it to you must actively inform you that there is a general terms of business applicable to the product. So when you go to the shop and pick up a copy of Vista, the click-through EULA you need to accept to install isn't worth anything unless either the box or the sales clerk made its contents available to you before or at the moment of purchase.
Courts have said otherwise. To be more precise, the contract between you and the manufacturer isn't completed when you hand over your money if the manufacturer said there were other conditions. In case of a click-through license, the manufacturer may have to tell you that acceptance of the license is necessary to close the deal, and then the deal is closed when you click the "I agree" button. For this to be legal, the terms must be available and clearly visible to you at the time you click "I agree", and the manufacturer must give you the right to get your money back if you don't agree.
A contract, including a sales contract, is entered when both sides agree to it. If the seller didn't make clear to you that he requests that you agree to the license, then both of you haven't entered a sales contract. So nothing in the license agreement is binding to you, on the other hand you don't have the right to use the software, on the third hand you have the right to get your money back in exchange for returning the software.
You might want to read the referenced article. It states "The USB Implementers Forum has finally responded to Palm's complaints that Apple is violating its USB-IF Membership Agreement by preventing the Pre from syncing with iTunes."
Your quote is very easy to misunderstand, whether that is intentionally, I don't know. I'll spell it out a bit clearer:
Palm has complained to the USB Implementers Forum. Palm claims that Apple prevents the Pre from syncing with iTunes (which we know is true). Palm also claims that by doing so, Apple is violating its USB-IF Membership Agreement. The USB Implementers Forum has finally responded to Palm's complaint.
What you haven't quoted is what the article further said: The USB IF's answer was that Palm is violating _its_ membership agreement by shipping hardware that pretends to be an iPod made by Apple.
Apple regularly boast they're #1 and the dominant supply of digital music, to the media, to the market and to consumers. They are the monopoly when it comes to portable music players and purchases, at least in the US.
Digital music has more than 99% market share, very few LPs and tape cassettes are sold nowadays. Of that digital music, the huge majority is still sold in the form of CDs. Apple's market share in digital music isn't more than 20% in the USA, and less elsewhere. But music sales are irrelevant to the situation here anyway, because it doesn't make the slightest difference here whether all your music is downloaded from the iTunes Music Store, from Amazon, ripped from your own CDs, or whether your music is 100% illegal downloads.
But even whether Apple has a monopoly in portable music players doesn't matter. Apple doesn't have to help competitors, they just wouldn't be allowed to hinder competitors. And they don't. You can see this from the fact that RIMM has created an application to sync music from an iTunes library to their Blackberrys. There is nothing from stopping anyone to create their own sync software, or from creating their own music player cum sync software. And judging by the constant moaning about iTunes on Windows, creating something that is better at least on Windows with its 90% market share should be childs play. There is this application called Windows Media Player which is shipped with every single copy of Windows.
Please guys, mod him down for not knowing what he is talking about.
The iTunes database is available in plain straightforward XML format. On a Macintosh, you can read that database with two lines of code and get either an NSDictionary* or a CFDictionaryRef; the code for CFDictionaryRef is part of Core Foundation and open sourced. That database contains _everything_ about your iTunes Library. The music files are plain MP3 or AAC files. Apple wrote software that can sync the iTunes Library to Apple hardware, Palm can do the same for their own hardware.
Really? Why don't you try to sell your legal copy of Rosetta Stone on eBay, and let us know how that works out for you. BTW: you might also want to look into the Apple v Psystar case.
There is a substantial difference between the two cases. Vernor used to (don't know if he still does it) buy copies of software cheaply, and then sold them on eBay. He didn't use the software, he didn't install it, he took the box that he bought and sold it on. The buyer has all rights and license obligations that he would have if he bought from Autodesk correctly. In the Psystar case, if Psystar bought boxes with MacOS X and sold them on and didn't do anything else, Apple couldn't do anything about that for the same reason. Of course they do a lot more; they even admitted creating a master copy that is installed on all computers they sell.
Say you have a Dell computer and you mention that you would like to run MacOS X on it, and somebody buys a box with MacOS X as a birthday present for you, first sale doctrine first allows them to give the box to you. You then don't have the right to install it on your Dell computer, because the license doesn't allow it, but you have the right to sell the box on eBay, and the buyer can then install it on a Macintosh but nowhere else.
The judge in Vernor vs. Autodesk also managed that it looks quite likely that some people selling their Autodesk boxes to Vernor had been in violation of their license agreements, but that had nothing to do with Vernor, and Autodesk would be free to sue those people. For example, if someone bought an upgrade to Autodesk at a reduced price, and then sold the old version to Vernor.
Seriously, what moron had to post this article here. Enter "Autodesk Vernor" into Google, and you will find that the case has been already decided more than a year ago, and Autodesk lost.
Who buys a computer at a supermarket? I did. Needed a PC for someone with little money, I get more information from reading what's written on the box than any sales person in any computer shop could ever give me, compared to prices advertised on the internet, compared to prices in other stores, and found it was the best value for money. With the added bonus that they don't have sales people who pretend that they know anything about computers.
A good one, and not without logic: If you take software licensed under the GPL, modify it, remove all the traces of the GPL and sell it on claiming that you wrote it, then this is an act of counterfeiting. Yes, that makes sense.
I'm new to GPL; Do I misunderstand? You aren't required to release everything that links to GPL libraries, right? Just any changes you make to the libraries themselves? Couldn't you continue to keep your shareware source closed, even if you use a GPL library?
I am not a lawyer, but I can tell you that if you want to use someone else's code, no matter what the license, in your own product, then you better read the license very carefully and don't rely on posts on Slashdot. Asking a lawyer might be a good idea
That said, if you use a library that is licensed under GPL and not dual licensed, then you cannot publish your code except under the GPL license. That's it. There are libraries published under the LGPL, which has different rules.
For example: the good Indiana Jones movies have a lot of Nazis and swastikas in them. Did they have to be editted for this ban?
If you intend that your movie makes money on the German market, you plan ahead: The mirror image of the swastika is allowed, and most Americans wouldn't notice the difference, so you can use it freely and generously.
I think the issue is with where to draw the line. Obviously, someone shouldn't be allowed to fly the flag of Nazi Germany outside their house, as that would be extremely intimidating to anyone living nearby who belongs to any of the groups Nazis don't like. By banning the swastika nearly outright, they avoid situations where someone could claim it was there for some artistic, ironic reason.
Actually, it wouldn't be intimidating. If you tried this (and it was legal), I can guarantee that the flag, the flagpole, the garden fence, your windows and many other things would be gone very soon.
Apple is using capabilities of the USB spec to disable interoperation with other manufacturers' equipment for what is clearly purely anticompetitive reasons. Don't you think it's a little late to "keep business politics out of this"?
You are confusing "competitive" with "anti-competitive".
Clearly Apple allows Palm to compete with iTunes. There is nothing that stops Palm from competing. For example, the Blackberry comes with software that allows it to sync with music that is managed by iTunes, and on the Macintosh it takes a huge total of two lines of code to read the iTunes database, which contains the exact contents of each playlist and the exact location of each music file in the playlist. It is up to Palm to make syncing with iTunes managed music as easy as Apple makes it for iPod users.
So Apple spend lots of effort on the iPod and the iTunes music player. All it is asking Palm is to compete by putting equal effort into the Palm Pre and a music player or syncing software.
It looks like GCD is very similar to OpenMP.
Who many lines in OpenMP to implement something like "do this task in a background thread at low priority, and when it's done, do that task in the UI thread"? In GCD it is two lines.
Can Facebook simply provide the source code in obfuscated form? As long as the compiler can parse it then it counts as source code right?
Of course not. It is not about compiling the code. It is about looking at the source code and finding out whether it does things that are covered by the patent. Obfuscating would make that impossible.
As it is, you can't even use TomTom with a Linux host system, since the interface protocol is a trade secret. So they have a long way to go.
I remember vaguely that TomTom was in trouble a few years ago for not publishing the source code for the Linux on their GPS...
Who says you can't run proprietary software on Linux?
Current Windows DRM scheme: You have an encrypted music file, and you have a key file. The software sends the key file to a server, which checks the key file, and if it is valid, it returns a key that can be used to play the music or video. The problem is that the DRM has to prevent you from copying the key file, and that is difficult.
With this scheme: You still have an encrypted music file, and a key file. The software still sends the key file to a server, which checks it and returns the key. Two differences: They don't mind if you copy the key. And anyone in possession of a key can click on a button which sends the key to a server, which takes note that this key is now invalid, but sends a fresh key back to that person. The effect:
1. You can backup the key files without problems and restore them on another computer if the first one crashes.
2. You can copy the key files to all your computers at home, at work etc.
3. You can sell your DRM'd music without problems. Just tell the purchaser to get new key files.
4. You can share with good friends.
5. You can't share with the world, because some greedy bastard will grab it.
Number 1 to 4 would be what you reasonably want, probably exceeding what the RIAA would want to give you. Number 5 would be what you shouldn't do anyway. The DRM would be a lot easier, because all it has to do is to design key files that cannot be generated except by the copyright owner, and keep the actual encryption key safe while the music is being played.
Steve Jobs parks in handicap spaces
According to the gutter press, he has been close to dying for the last five years, so why shouldn't he park in a handicapped space?
What they parties denying any DMCA takedown notices aren't saying is that they didn't threaten any potential action under the DMCA. It is just as likely that Flickr was responding to a threat of a DMCA takedown notice. If this is the case, then no one is telling any lies except for Flickr... and even in that case it's not a complete lie. But they do need to tell precisely who demanded that the material be removed or else they will lose in the public opinion of them.
You can't threaten with a DMCA takedown notice. A DMCA takedown notice is absolutely no problem for an ISP, all they have to do is check whether all the necessary elements are there (what material is allegedly copied, where can the copy be found, who is the copyright owner, who is its agent, how can the agent be contacted), take down the material, send a copy of the request to the person uploading the material, that's it. How would that be threatening?
And then mosey on up to that tailpipe, breathe deeply, and enjoy that score 1 out of 10 (10 is best, 1 is just barely legal to sell) EPA emissions rating.
Looks like you're measuring differently in the USA than in the UK. My car tax is based on CO2 emissions, and the 2008 and 2009 models of my Diesel car cost £35 car tax per year. The smallest petrol engine will cost £120 or more.
Cell phone triangulation just adds to this data and improves your accuracy and availability.
That's not what it does.
Every satellite transmits at exactly 1 MHz, but you receive it at a frequency that depends on your exact position, the exact time and the exact position of the satellite due to the doppler effect. When you turn the GPS on, it doesn't have a clue where it is because it doesn't receive any satellites, so the first thing it has to do is to scan the whole frequency band until it finds some satellites. That takes time.
With cell phone triangulation, the GPS knows a rough position and time very very quickly. With that rough position it can calculate which satellites are roughly where, and on which frequency they should be received. So it doesn't scan the whole frequency band, but only the frequencies where the satellites actually are. Therefore, the assisted GPS finds its satellites much quicker. Once it has the satellites, cell phone data is completely irrelevant because it is so much less accurate.
I don't know a lot about the intricacies of the legal system, but why is the client penalized for the behavior or mistakes of the attorney? Does the client dictate or approve every word that comes out of the attorneys mouth in court? If the attorney used misleading wording then shouldn't the attorney be censured or fined and not have that penalty included in the actual judgment?
It happens because it is the client who hired the lawyer. If you do something wrong while acting for your company, the company will quite likely be held responsible for what you do. Same with the lawyer. There is always the possibility to sue your lawyers in a situation like this, if you think that they were reckless or guilty for you losing the money. Let's say if your lawyer appears in court drunk and you lose the case because of that, you might very well have grounds to sue.