I live in Australia and for the past year I've had wireless broadband at 1024/512kbps with 12GB (shaped there-after) monthly download limit, for the princely sum of $49/month. And all of this in a tiny little town called Canberra, that's not even a major city. I have both a PCMCIA card and a desktop modem, and these let me roam to every major city in Oz.
When "studies" show that this doesn't make a dent in the number of files being copied each year, do you think the RIAA will become aware that their business model just isn't working? Ok, maybe that's too optimistic. But they've been going after Grokster for a while now... I hope they weren't seriously thinking that this will change people's attitudes.
So what's next for the RIAA? Where do they go from here?
I stand by my thoughts I don't see the internet as it run today as being broken. I would stand hand in hand with complainants if the United States were to do something stupid unilaterally with the internet "configuration". I would hope it wouldn't but as you validly point out it wouldn't be the first time.
I would just like to point out Verisign's DNS "hiccup" in 2003. I posit that it falls exactly into the category "something stupid unilaterally with the internet configuration". ICANN only buckled on this one after such community pressure.
Yeah, you make a very good point. The service address (Jeremy Malcolm) doesn't matter so much. That's pretty standard for a trademark application. The service is merely the legal agent acting on behalf of the owner(s). For example, the word "Linuxworld" is also trademarked:
Owner/s: International Data Group Inc.
5 Speen Street,
Framingham,
Massachusetts 01701,
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Address for Service: Lord & Company
4 Douro Place
WEST PERTH
6005,WA
However, what is interesting is the address given for Linus himself. As in the example above, there's no reason why Linus' US mailing address can't be provided. I'm not sure why Linux Australia's address is used, and not the address for Linux Mark or Linus himself.
Keep in mind that they can't falsify information on the trademark application, so there has to be some kind of legal relationship between Linux Australia Inc and Linus.
Umm.. well, since Linus is named as the owner of this trademark application, I'd say that it DOES have his blessing.
Bad choice of lawyers, maybe, but it appears to be legit nonetheless.
Guys, the Slashdot summary is a little misleading. The group "Linux Australia Inc" is NOT applying for the trademark.
I work at the patent office here in Australia and so I looked it up. The details of the trademark are:
Trade Mark : 985197 Type of Mark: Word Acceptance Due: 07-SEP-2005 Class/es: 9, 16, 42 Owner/s: Linus Torvalds
GPO Box 4788
SYDNEY,2071,NSW
AUSTRALIA
This actually seems to be a genuine attempt at preventing malicious abuse of the Linux name.
So I'm a bit ambivalent about this trademark. On one hand it goes against the spirit of open-ness. On the other hand I can think of numerous examples where I would want this enforced (eg, it protects the name from abuse by certain world-dominating-software-companies who may have an interest in dirtying the name).
I'm no fan of patents in IT, but this seems like a necessary evil to me.
Agreed. Techies don't hold the purse strings, and they should be well aware by now that "coolness" factor simply doesn't cut it with PHBs.
Mind you, that cost is still well under the cut-off point at which most level 3 managers can sign off on, so there's a chance that it might gain some market traction.
Still, no matter how bad the material on the website is, it's still fantastic seeing these kinds of products coming out. Good to see these guys haven't given up.
So why is the US on a crusade to catch the perpetrators of 9/11? After all, it's entirely normal to kill. They should be given a medal, shouldn't they? I mean, they killed for *their* own moral cause, so what's wrong with that?
Face it, it's *not* normal to kill people. How many times do you walk down the street and slay somebody?
Civilisation has made it decidedly abnormal to kill people (ie, more people die of natural causes, including old age, than by human hand). You're living in a country that was built on these principals. That's why we get so pissed off when things like 9/11 happen.
Or to put it another way: Should the police pursue the slayer of this spammer? If you answer yes, then you are acknowledging that the slaying of this guy was wrong. If you answer no, then I pray that I never meet you in the street, for you fall into the clinical definition of "psychopathic".
To a person outside of IT (which is most of the world's population) killing somebody over email is akin to the reaction *I* have when I hear a young african american killing another for their Nikes.
You're dancing around this man's corpse like some sub-plot from the Lord of the Flies! The fury that spammers have whipped up has twisted people's sense of normality.
Sure, spammers cost billions in damage. Get over it! They're no different from any other class of criminal (or purveyor of immoral acts). Are we to rejoice in the slaying of every single immoral person?
In the words of John Donne: No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind...
Why is it called a "race". If I'm part of the human race, then to where are we all racing? What are we racing for? Do I get a prize at the end if I'm the eventual winner?
It's all well and good MS differentiating its trademark from an existing one by positing that theirs is only valid when combined with the word Windows (ie, "Windows Vista"), but in a tech world where "XP" alone came to mean the latest incarnation of Windows, so too will "Vista" be diluted. When tech people see the word Vista alone of course they're going to associate it with MS. This dilution will spell the death of the Vista's intellectual property because it won't possibly have the resources to fight every single infringement in court (which it must do to keep its trademark). MS knows this. Sucks to be the small guy, eh? The MS juggernaut rolls on...
Yes, but the facts should speak for themselves. The request for raw data is perfectly reasonable. If that data is subsequently found to be falsified, THEN ask for financials.
The raw data should be peer-reviewed first... not the scientist's bank records.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm confused how all of this is "new".
So what's next for the RIAA? Where do they go from here?
I would just like to point out Verisign's DNS "hiccup" in 2003. I posit that it falls exactly into the category "something stupid unilaterally with the internet configuration". ICANN only buckled on this one after such community pressure.
Yeah, you make a very good point. The service address (Jeremy Malcolm) doesn't matter so much. That's pretty standard for a trademark application. The service is merely the legal agent acting on behalf of the owner(s). For example, the word "Linuxworld" is also trademarked:
Owner/s: International Data Group Inc.
5 Speen Street,
Framingham,
Massachusetts 01701,
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Address for Service: Lord & Company
4 Douro Place
WEST PERTH
6005,WA
However, what is interesting is the address given for Linus himself. As in the example above, there's no reason why Linus' US mailing address can't be provided. I'm not sure why Linux Australia's address is used, and not the address for Linux Mark or Linus himself.
Keep in mind that they can't falsify information on the trademark application, so there has to be some kind of legal relationship between Linux Australia Inc and Linus.
Of course, IANAIPL (IP lawyer).
Umm.. well, since Linus is named as the owner of this trademark application, I'd say that it DOES have his blessing. Bad choice of lawyers, maybe, but it appears to be legit nonetheless.
Guys, the Slashdot summary is a little misleading. The group "Linux Australia Inc" is NOT applying for the trademark.
:(
I work at the patent office here in Australia and so I looked it up. The details of the trademark are:
Trade Mark : 985197
Type of Mark: Word
Acceptance Due: 07-SEP-2005
Class/es: 9, 16, 42
Owner/s: Linus Torvalds
GPO Box 4788
SYDNEY,2071,NSW
AUSTRALIA
This actually seems to be a genuine attempt at preventing malicious abuse of the Linux name.
So I'm a bit ambivalent about this trademark. On one hand it goes against the spirit of open-ness. On the other hand I can think of numerous examples where I would want this enforced (eg, it protects the name from abuse by certain world-dominating-software-companies who may have an interest in dirtying the name).
I'm no fan of patents in IT, but this seems like a necessary evil to me.
Sad reflection of the times we live in...
I don't know what it is at all.
That's what makes it so cool :)
Mind you, that cost is still well under the cut-off point at which most level 3 managers can sign off on, so there's a chance that it might gain some market traction.
Still, no matter how bad the material on the website is, it's still fantastic seeing these kinds of products coming out. Good to see these guys haven't given up.
Face it, it's *not* normal to kill people. How many times do you walk down the street and slay somebody?
Civilisation has made it decidedly abnormal to kill people (ie, more people die of natural causes, including old age, than by human hand). You're living in a country that was built on these principals. That's why we get so pissed off when things like 9/11 happen.
Or to put it another way: Should the police pursue the slayer of this spammer? If you answer yes, then you are acknowledging that the slaying of this guy was wrong. If you answer no, then I pray that I never meet you in the street, for you fall into the clinical definition of "psychopathic".
To a person outside of IT (which is most of the world's population) killing somebody over email is akin to the reaction *I* have when I hear a young african american killing another for their Nikes.
Is *that* acceptable to society?
You obviously haven't heard about Drop Bears... the evil cousin of the koala:
http://www.cfr.com.au/dropbears/
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/3695/db.htm
(really)
You're dancing around this man's corpse like some sub-plot from the Lord of the Flies! The fury that spammers have whipped up has twisted people's sense of normality.
Sure, spammers cost billions in damage. Get over it! They're no different from any other class of criminal (or purveyor of immoral acts). Are we to rejoice in the slaying of every single immoral person?
In the words of John Donne: No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind...
You should all be ashamed of yourselves.
Why is it called a "race". If I'm part of the human race, then to where are we all racing? What are we racing for? Do I get a prize at the end if I'm the eventual winner?
It's all well and good MS differentiating its trademark from an existing one by positing that theirs is only valid when combined with the word Windows (ie, "Windows Vista"), but in a tech world where "XP" alone came to mean the latest incarnation of Windows, so too will "Vista" be diluted. When tech people see the word Vista alone of course they're going to associate it with MS. This dilution will spell the death of the Vista's intellectual property because it won't possibly have the resources to fight every single infringement in court (which it must do to keep its trademark). MS knows this. Sucks to be the small guy, eh? The MS juggernaut rolls on...
Yes, but the facts should speak for themselves. The request for raw data is perfectly reasonable. If that data is subsequently found to be falsified, THEN ask for financials. The raw data should be peer-reviewed first... not the scientist's bank records.