I think the general consensus is that this guy is in trouble with Apple no matter what.
The problem is, what happens a year or more down the line? Gizmodo was insensitive about this, to put it most politely.
The news and scoop is fantastic. The presentation, unfortunately, is something out of a high school newspaper.
Sadly, this only distracts from everything.
In the end, I think Gizmodo will win out -- even if they get hit and lose a significant lawsuit. Ad revenue may cover it.
Still, I'll avoid Gizmodo if I can. I always viewed it was a bit questionable, just in over all quality of the article. Now I know it's published by Gawker, which only worries me more.
They have so much civil liability because of how they outed this guy that I'm sure they didn't contact a lawyer. At least not prior to publication.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the wannabe-journalists aren't responding much to email because they're holed up with attorneys now trying to figure out how to mitigate the damages they might have levied against them.
It actually probably protects him quite a bit, assuming this wasn't a marketing ploy to begin with.
Think about it, they know which phone it was because they wiped it the day after it was lost. More than likely the employee himself reported it missing (again, assuming it wasn't a marketing ploy) in order to protect what little chance he had to keep his job. Obviously they've known since day one who lost it, either way.
By publicly outing the guy, he is going to have a lot of people who think he should keep his job in spite of the mistake. That's what they call "public pressure". Now Apple could harm their public image by firing the guy, or they could improve it by keeping him on. That's a lot more support than a nameless employee is going to get.
You won't be able to tell if it is a marketing ploy, by the way, unless they fire the guy. If they fire him, it almost certainly is not a marketing ploy. If he keeps his job, it could have been a ploy all along, or it could just be Apple deciding it would be worth more than this guy's job for them to look merciful to their subjects... I mean employees.
Because Apple cares about harming their public image?
Yeah right, this is a company that sued rumor blogs out of existence.
More importantly, this will hurt this guy in the future. It is an invasion of his privacy, It was not necessary for the story. It was done in a childish and unethical manner.
Gizmodo doesn't have journalists, it has children who don't know ethics. It's like a news version of script kiddies.
This is B.S. It's not going to hurt him? Sure, it doesn't hurt him to put his name out there as losing a prototype product. Sure, it doesn't hurt him to be the object of national, if not worldwide, ridicule for losing a phone. Sure, it doesn't hurt him to have his pictures posted on a well-distributed article.
How would you feel in this guy's place? I sure wouldn't want to be there.
Defending this type of unethical, unthinking, and unfeeling journalism only encourages it. There was no need to out him. No need. It was a classless move, not a classy one.
As others have said, it's almost certainly a CYA move on Gizmodo's part.
If by CYA you mean they've opened themselves up to even more legal liability, then yes.
They need to consult their lawyers before they pull this crap.
This is an invasion of this poor guy's privacy. The First Amendment won't protect them, either. This guy isn't famous in his own right, and disclosing him served no real purpose for the story. They're unethical behavior now has them on the hook for legal liabilities for his economic losses, pain and suffering for the exposure, and possible punitive damages for the nature of the outing and the questionable methods they used to acquire the device.
I hope this guy sues them. Any good Plaintiff's attorney knowing anything about invasion of privacy should jump at this case.
And, since they've realized this, they are doing their best to cover their asses by doing everything they can now to look like they were simply attempting to get it back to him rather than paying $5k to get an exclusive look at it.
The problem is that they're covering their asses by creating additional privacy liabilities. This is an invasion of this poor guy's privacy. The First Amendment likely won't protect them here, either. This guy isn't someone famous and it was not necessary, for the story, to out him.
The result of this unethical move is that the guy who lost the phone may now reasonably lay down economic losses for his inability to find a future job plus pain and suffering because of the publicity he received. Add on to that potential punitive damages because of the very questionable method Gizmodo used to acquire the phone and you have a case an good Plaintiff's attorney should take.
So, by covering their asses, and adding credibility, and acting like children in taunting Apple, Gizmodo has ruined some poor guy's life and opened themselves up to even greater liability.
Many fundamental programming elements require a firm grasp of math. Otherwise you are just cutting and pasting code you don't understand.
Further, math enhances the ability to logically and efficiently organize code and a coding project.
Finally, the more I have delved into coding the more I realize how now-forgotten math skills would help me solve problems. I remember what those skills could do, just not how to do them.
Any serious programmer also has to have some serious mathematical skills.
There is nothing magical about a signature. It is just one possible form of evidence that an agreement has been reached. Very few contracts require signatures, and all of those that do provide non-mechanical means of meeting that signature.
Even so, it's nice to have a signature than to have to provide other evidence. And it's a lot cheaper, typically.
Court cases finding liability are not cases where the government mandates the use of saw technology. Rather, by not having fundamentally safe characteristics to the saw, or appropriate warning labels, the court is finding the manufacturer liable for distributing a dangerous or defective product.
The authors on Techdirt just don't understand how the court system works, or what this means for power saws.
My only question is why copyright laws have not kicked in. There must be a deal with the co-opted author or authors.
Especially interesting is that this is in Germany. European copyright laws tend to have much stronger moral rights that allow authors to prevent the use of their work.
And, as for being an artist or a thief — those are not mutually exclusive.
The bigger sin, however, was not disclosing who she was sourcing. The sourcing itself, artfully done, is not the problem
Ack, I'm not keeping track of my OS X versions. I have Leopard on it, but not Snow Leopard. Also, I can't update Leopard. Apple's new Kernel no longer supports Atom processors. There are probably hacks, but I'm too lazy.
As for the iPad versus Netbooks, I don't know where I fall. I want to see a camera, and then I'd gladly give up my Hakcintoshed Netbook.
And I was underwhelmed by the iPad, but I think it will serve a good purpose. If for no other reason than getting Papers on a larger, easier read screen for reading and annotated my PDF articles. And Pages for iPad could be nice for some light word processing.
I'm a lawyer who dabbles in legal scholarship, so a lightweight way to carry all the docs I need to read will be nice. Lugging a 15-inch Macbook Pro around to court hearings in order to keep up with work is a bit of a pain, and the iPhone/iPod touch screen is too small.
We'll see how it goes. I would like an optional pen interface. Or maybe I'll just get a Modbook Pro.
I like it a lot. It makes me sad that Apple is forcing me to install another OS sooner rather than later. Right now I have OS X Tiger, but won't update it further.
As for docs, I mainly use it for viewing purposes. That's why I got it: a way to carry all my PDFs in a form factor larger than an iPhone. (I had an iPhone, but found it a pain to read and manage my collection on it. 4-hour reading sessions on the small text of the iPhone screen is not ideal.)
With the iPad coming, I'll probably work to switch to that. I'm confident the Papers folk with have an edition for iPad.
As for actual typing, I have a bluetooth keyboard (Apple) and Mouse (Apple, old BT mighty mouse). I actually typed 2 significant (25+ page) papers on it last spring for my masters classes.
My masters dissertation, though, was typed on a 15-inch Macbook Pro. I didn't have to lug it as far, and the extra screen space was nice.
When I wrote on the Dell Mini 9, I ended up writing drafts in Apple Pages or Scrivener, and then polished them up in Word (formatting and footnotes). I had to have a good Word output file because the school's printers were attached to computers with Word.;-)
Altogether, I do like OS X on the Mini 9. Still, I have been tempted, very tempted, to try both Moblin and Google Chrome, just to see what it's like. I'll wait until I get that iPad, though, so I won't regret losing my Apple HackBook.
I use Papers. It does not do everything you want, but it is a nice management tool. It is still growing in features, and the support staff is very responsive. (They provided me, same day, a new NIB file that allowed me to use it on my small hackintoshed Dell Mini 9 screen.)
This is what EA does best -- buying intellectual property by purchasing a studio, letting said studio run for a few years, and then gutting it and turning out unimaginative sequels on said intellectual property. See example Origins (Wing Commander & Ultima), Westwood Studio (Command & Conquer), and Kesmai (Air Warrior, MultiPlayer Battletech). The only difference is that the economy has sped up the process, because it usually takes EA 5 years to gut everything.
The US can make good phones. We just can't make affordable mobile network companies. I spent far less in the UK on iPhone service (including buying the phone) than I do in the U.S. with non-iPhone service. (Just regular service.)
The minutes are cheaper everywhere else, as are the text messages. And there are fewer lock-ins than in the U.S.
If only the UK wasn't so freakin' far away travel-wise . . .
I agree that Second Life's decision not to require a copyright grant is unusual among 3d environments, but that's not because Linden Lab grants you any rights, it's because Linden Lab does not require you to give away your rights in the process of registering with Second Life. This sounds like quibbling, but it is an important and significant legal distinction.
Quibbling can be important in ambiguous areas of the law. You are right, you are not giving away your rights. That is an important distinction. Moreover, Second Life is giving you rights as well. This is where you retain copyright in your work even if you use their skins.
This is comparable to Activision-Blizzard granting you rights in your character's backstory in World of Warcraft. A character backstory is a type of work traditionally associated with copyright. Depending on how much your borrow from Blizzard's own World of Warcraft story line, your story may be subject to derivative work copyright issues.
The Second Life approach, applied to World of Warcraft, would also grant you copyright freedom even over a derivative backstory for your character.
So yes, you are right in some ways, but no, there was no complete misunderstanding of the law. Rather, there are nuanced differences in our approaches to the law.
Of course, this is a moot point. The article does not involve copyright issues, it involves the theoretical creation of property rights in virtual items. This is something some legal commentators are beginning to advocate. This paper seeks to provide solid arguments against virtual property. Copyright is just a useful analogy since it is intangible, as virtual property would be.
Actually, the licenses for the gcc waive this, I believe. I would have to look it up.
And it is not my logic, merely a point on legal arguments people are willing to make. And yes, people have actually made that very same argument that compiling using someone's compiler grants the compiler's company the copyright in your program.
I am not saying it is right, or that it will stand up in court, but merely that the scope and limits of the law of derivative works as it pertains to software is currently not clear. It is ambiguous.
That is what is so novel about the Second Life Terms of Use. Rather than going the route of a game like World of Wacraft, it explicitly says 'We give you these explicit rights, and ourselves these explicit rights.'
It seeks to avoid problems of that ambiguity in the law. Other companies choose to exploit those ambiguities.
Needing to write this paper does seem a bit silly. So why write it? Why go through a lengthy analysis of why it is a bad idea?
Because legal commentators and law students who are fans of virtual worlds have written numerous arguments arguing for some kind of property right in virtual objects. This paper provides a counterweight to those arguments for virtual property rights.
The paper does not ignore EULAs as a governing contract. Rather, it puts those aside in order to apply the theories of those who argue for virtual property rights in order to better understand whether it is a good idea at all.
The conclusion is that even if virtual property advocates had their way, which includes ignoring EULAs as contracts governing ownership, then the imagined benefits won't appear. In other words, all the noble reasons for carving a new 'property right' out of virtual objects will not be satisfied by actually going through with it.
* In US law, you have a copyright in your creations when you create them, unless you grant that copyright to another. The Terms of Service in Sony's "Little Big World" state that to access the service you have to give up your rights in what you create, YOU grant YOUR rights TO Sony. The terms of Service in SL grant Linden Labs a right to your creations... Linden Labs isn't granting you anything... they are merely limiting the rights you grant them in the Terms of Service.
This is not entirely accurate. Linden Labs has a copyright in its virtual world. This includes the underlying code, any fictional story lines it creates, the names of land masses it creates, and the images it creates. This arguable includes the tools needed for modifying this world.
Copyright grants an owner rights in all subsequent derivative works as well. This differs from patent law. Under copyright law, the fan fiction I created based upon my EVE Online character's background, what planet he hales from, and what faction he represents is arguable a derivative work.
Similarly, works created in Second Life using Linden Lab's copyrighted materials are also arguable derivative works. Therefore, Linden Labs may own the rights to the boots your make or the items you design using their tools.
Why do I use the word 'arguable' so often, though? That is because there is a tremendous amount of ambiguity as to the scope of derivative rights in this context. For example, if Microsoft reserves all rights in the papers I write using MS Word, will using that tool mean my works are derivative works and Microsoft now owns their copyright? This is an extreme example, but the contours of this area of law are still being developed in the courts and lawschools of the U.S.
Second Life's Terms of Use clears these ambiguities up. It does two things: (1) First, it divides copyright clearly between Linden Labs and the user; (2) Second, it creates a covenant not to sue for copyright infringement based on derivative rights.
The effects here are more-or-less the same as in the above post. Rather, the path the laws takes to get to a similar conclusion is different. This may seem unimportant, but it is actually very important. A few different turns through actual copyright procedure leaves not only the person selling tape recordings on the street violating copyright law, but also the guy who sings the song the tapes have on them. See Grand Upright v. Warner Bros.
Actually, one of the most revered attributes of property is the ability to exclude. The Supreme Court has stated in cases that the right to exclude is the most important stick in the bundle of rights. (Kaiser v. Aetna.) Some have argued the right to exclude is the 'sine qua non' of property.
Property law recognizes the important of the right to exclude in its methods of dealing with the ability to exclude. Property acquisition is a prime example. In order to acquire property, US common law has a long tradition of requiring a person to be able to exercise dominion and control over the object. Pierson v. Post, one of the more famous US property cases, is a perfect example of this.
The court in Pierson ruled that a foxhunter could not gain a property right in a fox unless he mortally wounded the fox, killed it, or captured it. Either of those three actions, in the court's eyes, was the result of the foxhunter exercising his dominion and control over an object in nature (and thereby acquiring it as his own property).
So there is a very real question as to whether the attributes of property can apply to virtual objects. Who exerts dominion and control over that object? The user? What about the developer and his superuser abilities? The user's rights, more often than not, are subject to the greater dominion and control of the superuser, or developer.
And then there is the property attribute of rivalrousness. Rivalrousness means something has a state that only allows one person to possess it at a time. This is considered by many property theorists as an important property attribute -- and one of the primary arguments for the existence of property law to begin with. Garret Hardin argued in The Tragedy of the Commons that property rights are the most efficient method of allocating usage rights in scarce, rivalrous objects.
It is not clear that virtual items are rivalrous. This goes back, once again, to the ability to exert dominion and control over the virtual object. A user can exert some control over his 'virtual sword,' but ultimately the developer can take it away. Similarly, in many virtual worlds, users can 'possess' the same seat or piece of land without harming the other's use and enjoyment of it. (What happens when you walk through someone in World of Warcraft? Do you bump them out of the way?)
So your assertion that property rights are not in conflict with concepts of 'virtual property' is not accurate. Property rights are very much in conflict with virtual property concepts.
One great illustration of this is the most often 'virtual property' right people think of -- copyright law.
Moving beyond the fact that US Copyright law does not call itself a property right, the application of property concepts to these intangible 'properties' creates many problems.
Enforcing copyright law was much easier when methods of distribution were more difficult. Physical copies could be easily possessed and controlled. They were rivalrous in nature.
The digital revolution severed the tangible copy from the intangible expression copyright law protected. The current issues in enforcing copyright law have arisen from the inability of copyright holders to exclude others.
This inability to exclude is the result of an inability to exert dominion and control over the intangible expression since copies of that expression are no longer rivalrous -- they are digital instead.
You do not own the money in your bank account. The bank owns that money. What you own is a right to demand the bank honor its obligation to pay you that money. This is why people will make runs on the bank when deposits are not insured (such as FDIC insurance in the US).
This is a common misconception. People confuse 'ownership' with 'obligation.' What you really own in a bank account is a contractual right that allows you to demand your money.
Proof of harm is not a good defense in Copyright infringement cases. Why?
All you have to prove for a Copyright infringement case is that there was an unauthorized copy made of the file.
Once that is proven, the plaintiff can get statutory damages. These can only be gotten if the copyrighted work has a copyright notice on it, I believe, and there may be some additional requirements. Regardless, all major labels package and file their copyrighted songs in a manner allowing for these damages.
So, you only have to prove harm if, say, your Blog with no copyright notice on it gets copied without authorization by someone and you're then suing them.
As for the evidence against you, there are two ways to attack that. First, in limine, can you file objections to the evidence provided by Media Sentry. These would fall under the Federal Rules of Evidence. Judges have tremendous leeway on this, and most of the efforts to knock out the evidence have failed. Which leads to the second route of attack.
Discredit the evidence to the jury. Judges let a lot of evidence in because they want to leave it up to the trier of fact -- the jury -- to decide how to weigh it. Unless evidence clearly runs afoul of a rule of evidence (such as hearsay, unauthenticated documents, or an expert opinion made by someone who is not an expert) then it usually comes in.
This second route of attack requires the defense to take that evidence and spin it so that it is viewed as unreliable. This can be difficult. The Jaime Thomas case is a good example of the difficulties of this, and how easy it is to fail. Juries are always wildcards. (Juries do tend to be very sincere at what they do, however.)
So, while lawyers may complain about the representation Tenenbaum received, it does not necessarily mean the case would have gone differently with better representation. Rather, deadlines would probably not have been missed and the lead attorney would likely have avoided orders to show cause as to why they should not be sanctioned under Rule 11 violations. (Although, these do happen with non-professor attorneys . . ..)
Yea, but corporate lawyers went to places like Harvard and have massive debts to repay. And, since corporate lawyers work on an hourly billing system, we won't have to worry about their "solution" until many, many years down the line . . . if ever.
Slashdot Mirror
Fair enough.
I think the general consensus is that this guy is in trouble with Apple no matter what.
The problem is, what happens a year or more down the line? Gizmodo was insensitive about this, to put it most politely.
The news and scoop is fantastic. The presentation, unfortunately, is something out of a high school newspaper.
Sadly, this only distracts from everything.
In the end, I think Gizmodo will win out -- even if they get hit and lose a significant lawsuit. Ad revenue may cover it.
Still, I'll avoid Gizmodo if I can. I always viewed it was a bit questionable, just in over all quality of the article. Now I know it's published by Gawker, which only worries me more.
They have so much civil liability because of how they outed this guy that I'm sure they didn't contact a lawyer. At least not prior to publication.
In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the wannabe-journalists aren't responding much to email because they're holed up with attorneys now trying to figure out how to mitigate the damages they might have levied against them.
It actually probably protects him quite a bit, assuming this wasn't a marketing ploy to begin with.
Think about it, they know which phone it was because they wiped it the day after it was lost. More than likely the employee himself reported it missing (again, assuming it wasn't a marketing ploy) in order to protect what little chance he had to keep his job. Obviously they've known since day one who lost it, either way.
By publicly outing the guy, he is going to have a lot of people who think he should keep his job in spite of the mistake. That's what they call "public pressure". Now Apple could harm their public image by firing the guy, or they could improve it by keeping him on. That's a lot more support than a nameless employee is going to get.
You won't be able to tell if it is a marketing ploy, by the way, unless they fire the guy. If they fire him, it almost certainly is not a marketing ploy. If he keeps his job, it could have been a ploy all along, or it could just be Apple deciding it would be worth more than this guy's job for them to look merciful to their subjects... I mean employees.
Because Apple cares about harming their public image?
Yeah right, this is a company that sued rumor blogs out of existence.
More importantly, this will hurt this guy in the future. It is an invasion of his privacy, It was not necessary for the story. It was done in a childish and unethical manner.
Gizmodo doesn't have journalists, it has children who don't know ethics. It's like a news version of script kiddies.
Totally classles.
This is B.S. It's not going to hurt him? Sure, it doesn't hurt him to put his name out there as losing a prototype product. Sure, it doesn't hurt him to be the object of national, if not worldwide, ridicule for losing a phone. Sure, it doesn't hurt him to have his pictures posted on a well-distributed article.
How would you feel in this guy's place? I sure wouldn't want to be there.
Defending this type of unethical, unthinking, and unfeeling journalism only encourages it. There was no need to out him. No need. It was a classless move, not a classy one.
As others have said, it's almost certainly a CYA move on Gizmodo's part.
If by CYA you mean they've opened themselves up to even more legal liability, then yes.
They need to consult their lawyers before they pull this crap.
This is an invasion of this poor guy's privacy. The First Amendment won't protect them, either. This guy isn't famous in his own right, and disclosing him served no real purpose for the story. They're unethical behavior now has them on the hook for legal liabilities for his economic losses, pain and suffering for the exposure, and possible punitive damages for the nature of the outing and the questionable methods they used to acquire the device.
I hope this guy sues them. Any good Plaintiff's attorney knowing anything about invasion of privacy should jump at this case.
Stay class, Gizmodo.
And, since they've realized this, they are doing their best to cover their asses by doing everything they can now to look like they were simply attempting to get it back to him rather than paying $5k to get an exclusive look at it.
The problem is that they're covering their asses by creating additional privacy liabilities. This is an invasion of this poor guy's privacy. The First Amendment likely won't protect them here, either. This guy isn't someone famous and it was not necessary, for the story, to out him.
The result of this unethical move is that the guy who lost the phone may now reasonably lay down economic losses for his inability to find a future job plus pain and suffering because of the publicity he received. Add on to that potential punitive damages because of the very questionable method Gizmodo used to acquire the phone and you have a case an good Plaintiff's attorney should take.
So, by covering their asses, and adding credibility, and acting like children in taunting Apple, Gizmodo has ruined some poor guy's life and opened themselves up to even greater liability.
Stay class, Gizmodo.
Many fundamental programming elements require a firm grasp of math. Otherwise you are just cutting and pasting code you don't understand.
Further, math enhances the ability to logically and efficiently organize code and a coding project.
Finally, the more I have delved into coding the more I realize how now-forgotten math skills would help me solve problems. I remember what those skills could do, just not how to do them.
Any serious programmer also has to have some serious mathematical skills.
There is nothing magical about a signature. It is just one possible form of evidence that an agreement has been reached. Very few contracts require signatures, and all of those that do provide non-mechanical means of meeting that signature.
Even so, it's nice to have a signature than to have to provide other evidence. And it's a lot cheaper, typically.
Court cases finding liability are not cases where the government mandates the use of saw technology. Rather, by not having fundamentally safe characteristics to the saw, or appropriate warning labels, the court is finding the manufacturer liable for distributing a dangerous or defective product.
The authors on Techdirt just don't understand how the court system works, or what this means for power saws.
Seriously.
My only question is why copyright laws have not kicked in. There must be a deal with the co-opted author or authors.
Especially interesting is that this is in Germany. European copyright laws tend to have much stronger moral rights that allow authors to prevent the use of their work.
And, as for being an artist or a thief — those are not mutually exclusive.
The bigger sin, however, was not disclosing who she was sourcing. The sourcing itself, artfully done, is not the problem
.
Ack, I'm not keeping track of my OS X versions. I have Leopard on it, but not Snow Leopard. Also, I can't update Leopard. Apple's new Kernel no longer supports Atom processors. There are probably hacks, but I'm too lazy.
As for the iPad versus Netbooks, I don't know where I fall. I want to see a camera, and then I'd gladly give up my Hakcintoshed Netbook.
And I was underwhelmed by the iPad, but I think it will serve a good purpose. If for no other reason than getting Papers on a larger, easier read screen for reading and annotated my PDF articles. And Pages for iPad could be nice for some light word processing.
I'm a lawyer who dabbles in legal scholarship, so a lightweight way to carry all the docs I need to read will be nice. Lugging a 15-inch Macbook Pro around to court hearings in order to keep up with work is a bit of a pain, and the iPhone/iPod touch screen is too small.
We'll see how it goes. I would like an optional pen interface. Or maybe I'll just get a Modbook Pro.
I like it a lot. It makes me sad that Apple is forcing me to install another OS sooner rather than later. Right now I have OS X Tiger, but won't update it further.
As for docs, I mainly use it for viewing purposes. That's why I got it: a way to carry all my PDFs in a form factor larger than an iPhone. (I had an iPhone, but found it a pain to read and manage my collection on it. 4-hour reading sessions on the small text of the iPhone screen is not ideal.)
With the iPad coming, I'll probably work to switch to that. I'm confident the Papers folk with have an edition for iPad.
As for actual typing, I have a bluetooth keyboard (Apple) and Mouse (Apple, old BT mighty mouse). I actually typed 2 significant (25+ page) papers on it last spring for my masters classes.
My masters dissertation, though, was typed on a 15-inch Macbook Pro. I didn't have to lug it as far, and the extra screen space was nice.
When I wrote on the Dell Mini 9, I ended up writing drafts in Apple Pages or Scrivener, and then polished them up in Word (formatting and footnotes). I had to have a good Word output file because the school's printers were attached to computers with Word. ;-)
Altogether, I do like OS X on the Mini 9. Still, I have been tempted, very tempted, to try both Moblin and Google Chrome, just to see what it's like. I'll wait until I get that iPad, though, so I won't regret losing my Apple HackBook.
I use Papers. It does not do everything you want, but it is a nice management tool. It is still growing in features, and the support staff is very responsive. (They provided me, same day, a new NIB file that allowed me to use it on my small hackintoshed Dell Mini 9 screen.)
The link is here: http://mekentosj.com/papers/
Otherwise, Endnote works well. I know many who use it. There are a few others that are also out there.
Good luck with it.
This is what EA does best -- buying intellectual property by purchasing a studio, letting said studio run for a few years, and then gutting it and turning out unimaginative sequels on said intellectual property. See example Origins (Wing Commander & Ultima), Westwood Studio (Command & Conquer), and Kesmai (Air Warrior, MultiPlayer Battletech). The only difference is that the economy has sped up the process, because it usually takes EA 5 years to gut everything.
I'm just saying, maybe those Nancy frenchmen have weak immune systems, but I don't see a problem for us Americans.
The US can make good phones. We just can't make affordable mobile network companies. I spent far less in the UK on iPhone service (including buying the phone) than I do in the U.S. with non-iPhone service. (Just regular service.)
The minutes are cheaper everywhere else, as are the text messages. And there are fewer lock-ins than in the U.S.
If only the UK wasn't so freakin' far away travel-wise . . .
I agree that Second Life's decision not to require a copyright grant is unusual among 3d environments, but that's not because Linden Lab grants you any rights, it's because Linden Lab does not require you to give away your rights in the process of registering with Second Life. This sounds like quibbling, but it is an important and significant legal distinction.
Quibbling can be important in ambiguous areas of the law. You are right, you are not giving away your rights. That is an important distinction. Moreover, Second Life is giving you rights as well. This is where you retain copyright in your work even if you use their skins.
This is comparable to Activision-Blizzard granting you rights in your character's backstory in World of Warcraft. A character backstory is a type of work traditionally associated with copyright. Depending on how much your borrow from Blizzard's own World of Warcraft story line, your story may be subject to derivative work copyright issues.
The Second Life approach, applied to World of Warcraft, would also grant you copyright freedom even over a derivative backstory for your character.
So yes, you are right in some ways, but no, there was no complete misunderstanding of the law. Rather, there are nuanced differences in our approaches to the law.
Of course, this is a moot point. The article does not involve copyright issues, it involves the theoretical creation of property rights in virtual items. This is something some legal commentators are beginning to advocate. This paper seeks to provide solid arguments against virtual property. Copyright is just a useful analogy since it is intangible, as virtual property would be.
Actually, the licenses for the gcc waive this, I believe. I would have to look it up.
And it is not my logic, merely a point on legal arguments people are willing to make. And yes, people have actually made that very same argument that compiling using someone's compiler grants the compiler's company the copyright in your program.
I am not saying it is right, or that it will stand up in court, but merely that the scope and limits of the law of derivative works as it pertains to software is currently not clear. It is ambiguous.
That is what is so novel about the Second Life Terms of Use. Rather than going the route of a game like World of Wacraft, it explicitly says 'We give you these explicit rights, and ourselves these explicit rights.'
It seeks to avoid problems of that ambiguity in the law. Other companies choose to exploit those ambiguities.
Needing to write this paper does seem a bit silly. So why write it? Why go through a lengthy analysis of why it is a bad idea?
Because legal commentators and law students who are fans of virtual worlds have written numerous arguments arguing for some kind of property right in virtual objects. This paper provides a counterweight to those arguments for virtual property rights.
The paper does not ignore EULAs as a governing contract. Rather, it puts those aside in order to apply the theories of those who argue for virtual property rights in order to better understand whether it is a good idea at all.
The conclusion is that even if virtual property advocates had their way, which includes ignoring EULAs as contracts governing ownership, then the imagined benefits won't appear. In other words, all the noble reasons for carving a new 'property right' out of virtual objects will not be satisfied by actually going through with it.
* In US law, you have a copyright in your creations when you create them, unless you grant that copyright to another. The Terms of Service in Sony's "Little Big World" state that to access the service you have to give up your rights in what you create, YOU grant YOUR rights TO Sony. The terms of Service in SL grant Linden Labs a right to your creations... Linden Labs isn't granting you anything... they are merely limiting the rights you grant them in the Terms of Service.
This is not entirely accurate. Linden Labs has a copyright in its virtual world. This includes the underlying code, any fictional story lines it creates, the names of land masses it creates, and the images it creates. This arguable includes the tools needed for modifying this world.
Copyright grants an owner rights in all subsequent derivative works as well. This differs from patent law. Under copyright law, the fan fiction I created based upon my EVE Online character's background, what planet he hales from, and what faction he represents is arguable a derivative work.
Similarly, works created in Second Life using Linden Lab's copyrighted materials are also arguable derivative works. Therefore, Linden Labs may own the rights to the boots your make or the items you design using their tools.
Why do I use the word 'arguable' so often, though? That is because there is a tremendous amount of ambiguity as to the scope of derivative rights in this context. For example, if Microsoft reserves all rights in the papers I write using MS Word, will using that tool mean my works are derivative works and Microsoft now owns their copyright? This is an extreme example, but the contours of this area of law are still being developed in the courts and lawschools of the U.S.
Second Life's Terms of Use clears these ambiguities up. It does two things: (1) First, it divides copyright clearly between Linden Labs and the user; (2) Second, it creates a covenant not to sue for copyright infringement based on derivative rights.
The effects here are more-or-less the same as in the above post. Rather, the path the laws takes to get to a similar conclusion is different. This may seem unimportant, but it is actually very important. A few different turns through actual copyright procedure leaves not only the person selling tape recordings on the street violating copyright law, but also the guy who sings the song the tapes have on them. See Grand Upright v. Warner Bros.
Actually, one of the most revered attributes of property is the ability to exclude. The Supreme Court has stated in cases that the right to exclude is the most important stick in the bundle of rights. (Kaiser v. Aetna.) Some have argued the right to exclude is the 'sine qua non' of property.
Property law recognizes the important of the right to exclude in its methods of dealing with the ability to exclude. Property acquisition is a prime example. In order to acquire property, US common law has a long tradition of requiring a person to be able to exercise dominion and control over the object. Pierson v. Post, one of the more famous US property cases, is a perfect example of this.
The court in Pierson ruled that a foxhunter could not gain a property right in a fox unless he mortally wounded the fox, killed it, or captured it. Either of those three actions, in the court's eyes, was the result of the foxhunter exercising his dominion and control over an object in nature (and thereby acquiring it as his own property).
So there is a very real question as to whether the attributes of property can apply to virtual objects. Who exerts dominion and control over that object? The user? What about the developer and his superuser abilities? The user's rights, more often than not, are subject to the greater dominion and control of the superuser, or developer.
And then there is the property attribute of rivalrousness. Rivalrousness means something has a state that only allows one person to possess it at a time. This is considered by many property theorists as an important property attribute -- and one of the primary arguments for the existence of property law to begin with. Garret Hardin argued in The Tragedy of the Commons that property rights are the most efficient method of allocating usage rights in scarce, rivalrous objects.
It is not clear that virtual items are rivalrous. This goes back, once again, to the ability to exert dominion and control over the virtual object. A user can exert some control over his 'virtual sword,' but ultimately the developer can take it away. Similarly, in many virtual worlds, users can 'possess' the same seat or piece of land without harming the other's use and enjoyment of it. (What happens when you walk through someone in World of Warcraft? Do you bump them out of the way?)
So your assertion that property rights are not in conflict with concepts of 'virtual property' is not accurate. Property rights are very much in conflict with virtual property concepts.
One great illustration of this is the most often 'virtual property' right people think of -- copyright law.
Moving beyond the fact that US Copyright law does not call itself a property right, the application of property concepts to these intangible 'properties' creates many problems.
Enforcing copyright law was much easier when methods of distribution were more difficult. Physical copies could be easily possessed and controlled. They were rivalrous in nature.
The digital revolution severed the tangible copy from the intangible expression copyright law protected. The current issues in enforcing copyright law have arisen from the inability of copyright holders to exclude others.
This inability to exclude is the result of an inability to exert dominion and control over the intangible expression since copies of that expression are no longer rivalrous -- they are digital instead.
You do not own the money in your bank account. The bank owns that money. What you own is a right to demand the bank honor its obligation to pay you that money. This is why people will make runs on the bank when deposits are not insured (such as FDIC insurance in the US).
This is a common misconception. People confuse 'ownership' with 'obligation.' What you really own in a bank account is a contractual right that allows you to demand your money.
10% unemployment in the EU is an economic revival. 20% is smooth sailing. :-)
Proof of harm is not a good defense in Copyright infringement cases. Why?
All you have to prove for a Copyright infringement case is that there was an unauthorized copy made of the file.
Once that is proven, the plaintiff can get statutory damages. These can only be gotten if the copyrighted work has a copyright notice on it, I believe, and there may be some additional requirements. Regardless, all major labels package and file their copyrighted songs in a manner allowing for these damages.
So, you only have to prove harm if, say, your Blog with no copyright notice on it gets copied without authorization by someone and you're then suing them.
As for the evidence against you, there are two ways to attack that. First, in limine, can you file objections to the evidence provided by Media Sentry. These would fall under the Federal Rules of Evidence. Judges have tremendous leeway on this, and most of the efforts to knock out the evidence have failed. Which leads to the second route of attack.
Discredit the evidence to the jury. Judges let a lot of evidence in because they want to leave it up to the trier of fact -- the jury -- to decide how to weigh it. Unless evidence clearly runs afoul of a rule of evidence (such as hearsay, unauthenticated documents, or an expert opinion made by someone who is not an expert) then it usually comes in.
This second route of attack requires the defense to take that evidence and spin it so that it is viewed as unreliable. This can be difficult. The Jaime Thomas case is a good example of the difficulties of this, and how easy it is to fail. Juries are always wildcards. (Juries do tend to be very sincere at what they do, however.)
So, while lawyers may complain about the representation Tenenbaum received, it does not necessarily mean the case would have gone differently with better representation. Rather, deadlines would probably not have been missed and the lead attorney would likely have avoided orders to show cause as to why they should not be sanctioned under Rule 11 violations. (Although, these do happen with non-professor attorneys . . . .)
Yea, but corporate lawyers went to places like Harvard and have massive debts to repay. And, since corporate lawyers work on an hourly billing system, we won't have to worry about their "solution" until many, many years down the line . . . if ever.