Did you even read the subsection you cite? "... [provided] that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner[.]" (emphasis supplied)
I wouldn't be surprised if the Supreme Court resolves that split someday, but it would take a pretty big case to do it. It shouldn't surprise you that Gateway 2000 is headquartered in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and that South Dakota is in the 8th Circuit.;)
As others have pointed out, contracts of adhesion are enforceable unless they are unconscionable. Not all adhesion contracts are unconscionable. As to "hidden conditions," what I think you mean is that the EULA is within the box, so the terms cannot be part of the contract by which you purchased the product. The EULA is perfectly valid in those cases, especially given a case involving Gateway 2000 where a court said that the additional terms within the box the computer came in were part of the contract, because the consumer could reject the goods if the added terms were not acceptable.
However, we are straying a long way from the original point of this thread. Whether you download XP Pro or you hack the XP Home CD, you are using software beyond the rights that were licensed to you with respect to that software. In the XP Pro case, you are using the software without any license to do so; while in the XP Home case you are using it in a way that you aren't licensed to. The piracy argument is harder to make for the second situation, but that doesn't make it any more legal with respect to the license.
On a side note, the unrelated person that the *AA asks to go download your file is probably also guilty of a crime, but the *AA would be guilty of solicitation to commit the crime, even if the other person never downloaded the file. Of course the *AA is the victim and may have consented to it, but the rules on all this when it comes to copyright infringement on the Internet are ill-defined, at best, as this whole story goes to show.
I'm not sure exactly how fair use is faring these days, but since the *AA already has a license to the content, it might not even be distribution per se for them to download it from you.
Now, an unrelated person could still help you infringe, and entrapment might lie. Entrapment is, as others have pointed out, generally confined to law enforcement officers, but this still feels similar to you grabbing my hand and hitting someone with it and telling the cops I assaulted the other guy, or you telling the other guy to pick a fight with me.
Thanks for posting that. I thought I was alone in the world in thinking that phones are for talking to people. I don't have a huge problem with SMS, because it's at least a form of communication so it goes alongside the talking thing. But the games, ringtones, and cameras are getting on my nerves.
I saw an ad for a cell phone that started out with two guys out at lunch, and one of them whipped out his phone to use the built-in pepper mill to grind some pepper over his salad. Then the narrator cut in: "Want a phone with features you actually need?" Those features were explicitly listed as including games and ringtones.
I would get more use out of a pepper mill built into my phone than I ever would of a game or funky ringtone.
It's a free market. Those with something to sell can and should sell it at the equilibrium price. Personally, I think your 50% premium doesn't go far enough. After all, how much should you be paid extra to deal with lawyers all day? Just being in the same room as a lawyer should pay $100/hr.:P
Thanks for the clarification. Will the settlement class be binding on those who do not file a claim?
IAALS, and I agree entirely with your postscript. I tried to post elsewhere on this story pointing out that you personally, just for example, will likely not see more than 5 digits of the 7-digit lawyers' portion of the settlement.
That $2,768,000 figure includes all their costs, which are huge in a class action case of this size. The lawyers won't be poor when it's all said and done, but they won't exactly be sitting on a $3 million bucket of cash.
I do not have time to RTFA before posting this, nor will I bother to read it because I do not own an iPod (yet). Also, I am going by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure on this because I don't know the California rules, but they are almost certainly substantially the same.
It is important to realize that class action lawsuits are an opt-out affair, not opt-in. Even if they settle, it is up to the class action lawyers to give individual notice (publishing notice, even on Slashdot, does not suffice) of the pending action and the right to opt out (if that right exists, which it does in most class action lawsuits that you hear about) to every person in the class. You are a part of the class unless you opt out of it. The deadline is probably an opt-out deadline, not a claim deadline.
So if you want a part of the class action, then just sit back and enjoy the check when it arrives. You may have to confirm your address or something, but you aren't required to opt in.
If you instead want to opt out of this class and take your iPod battery problems up with Apple personally (perhaps because you feel the class will not adequately represent your similar claim), you need to opt out of the settlement class.
Anyone who's ever been the plaintiff in a lawsuit knows that it's not a "short-term moneymaking scheme." Watch the movie A Civil Action to see what life is like for the majority of plaintiffs and their lawyers. It's not short-term and it's not often moneymaking.
Evidently the people you help have no problem with clicking, icons, or basic reading comprehension. I worked at a bank for too long to trust people in general to handle those elements without trouble.
Isn't that what Clearchannel already is? Some dickhead in a car broadcasting shitty music that millions of asshat radio station managers just rebroadcast to the world?
Why can't they name that icon something better than "Computer"? Don't they realize by now how confused people get when you tell them "Okay, go to My Computer." or "Okay, go to The Computer." or even "Okay, go to Computer." (which just makes you sound retarded)? What's wrong with calling it "System" or something a little bit less obnoxious? "Double-click on System." sounds so much clearer to a layman than does "Double-click on Computer."
The article blurb says 30-mile radius. That's over 2,700 square miles. New York City (as in the whole thing) is about 469 square miles, according to here and a conversion from here, and its population (first source again) is about 8,158,000. Granted that it depends on exactly which 2,700 square miles you pick, you should be able to come up with a million people capable of broadcasting in range.
"[I]magine a city like New York where you could have 1000 people all broadcasting[.]" (Emphasis supplied.)
Um. I hate to break this to you, but NYC has a technology-savvy population slightly larger than 1,000. Just slightly. You're almost guaranteed to have that many broadcasting, and easily could have something closer to 1,000,000 broadcasters if enough idiots ride this bandwagon to town.
Like I said, "If... you know that your machine is being used to commit criminal acts," you can be charged with conspiracy. Proving that you knew that is an exercise for the federal prosecutor.
It's only vaporware because they haven't written a Common Lisp for the machine yet. After all, the perfect programming language to target a self-reconfiguring machine is one that can reconfigure itself to keep up with the machine.
It gets worse. If you set yourself up as a C box by running the software, and you know that your machine is being used to commit criminal acts such as piracy, then you and A and B can all be charged together as a conspiracy chain. And it gets even better: in federal court, conspirators are liable for all of the related criminal acts of their co-conspirators. So, if you as C help A and B pirate one mp3, and they use other Cs to pirate 1,000 other mp3s, you can probably all be charged for all 1,001 counts of piracy. Enjoy.
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Did you even read the subsection you cite? "... [provided] that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner[.]" (emphasis supplied)
Read the license carefully and show me the language that allows you to modify the software.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Supreme Court resolves that split someday, but it would take a pretty big case to do it. It shouldn't surprise you that Gateway 2000 is headquartered in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and that South Dakota is in the 8th Circuit. ;)
As others have pointed out, contracts of adhesion are enforceable unless they are unconscionable. Not all adhesion contracts are unconscionable. As to "hidden conditions," what I think you mean is that the EULA is within the box, so the terms cannot be part of the contract by which you purchased the product. The EULA is perfectly valid in those cases, especially given a case involving Gateway 2000 where a court said that the additional terms within the box the computer came in were part of the contract, because the consumer could reject the goods if the added terms were not acceptable.
However, we are straying a long way from the original point of this thread. Whether you download XP Pro or you hack the XP Home CD, you are using software beyond the rights that were licensed to you with respect to that software. In the XP Pro case, you are using the software without any license to do so; while in the XP Home case you are using it in a way that you aren't licensed to. The piracy argument is harder to make for the second situation, but that doesn't make it any more legal with respect to the license.
Shouldn't the TIME column read something a little bit larger than 69 hours? Like, oh, 10 billion years or something like that? ;)
On a side note, the unrelated person that the *AA asks to go download your file is probably also guilty of a crime, but the *AA would be guilty of solicitation to commit the crime, even if the other person never downloaded the file. Of course the *AA is the victim and may have consented to it, but the rules on all this when it comes to copyright infringement on the Internet are ill-defined, at best, as this whole story goes to show.
I'm not sure exactly how fair use is faring these days, but since the *AA already has a license to the content, it might not even be distribution per se for them to download it from you.
Now, an unrelated person could still help you infringe, and entrapment might lie. Entrapment is, as others have pointed out, generally confined to law enforcement officers, but this still feels similar to you grabbing my hand and hitting someone with it and telling the cops I assaulted the other guy, or you telling the other guy to pick a fight with me.
It's an ongoing saga.
Thanks for posting that. I thought I was alone in the world in thinking that phones are for talking to people. I don't have a huge problem with SMS, because it's at least a form of communication so it goes alongside the talking thing. But the games, ringtones, and cameras are getting on my nerves.
I saw an ad for a cell phone that started out with two guys out at lunch, and one of them whipped out his phone to use the built-in pepper mill to grind some pepper over his salad. Then the narrator cut in: "Want a phone with features you actually need?" Those features were explicitly listed as including games and ringtones.
I would get more use out of a pepper mill built into my phone than I ever would of a game or funky ringtone.
It's a free market. Those with something to sell can and should sell it at the equilibrium price. Personally, I think your 50% premium doesn't go far enough. After all, how much should you be paid extra to deal with lawyers all day? Just being in the same room as a lawyer should pay $100/hr. :P
Thanks for the clarification. Will the settlement class be binding on those who do not file a claim?
IAALS, and I agree entirely with your postscript. I tried to post elsewhere on this story pointing out that you personally, just for example, will likely not see more than 5 digits of the 7-digit lawyers' portion of the settlement.
That $2,768,000 figure includes all their costs, which are huge in a class action case of this size. The lawyers won't be poor when it's all said and done, but they won't exactly be sitting on a $3 million bucket of cash.
I do not have time to RTFA before posting this, nor will I bother to read it because I do not own an iPod (yet). Also, I am going by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure on this because I don't know the California rules, but they are almost certainly substantially the same.
It is important to realize that class action lawsuits are an opt-out affair, not opt-in. Even if they settle, it is up to the class action lawyers to give individual notice (publishing notice, even on Slashdot, does not suffice) of the pending action and the right to opt out (if that right exists, which it does in most class action lawsuits that you hear about) to every person in the class. You are a part of the class unless you opt out of it. The deadline is probably an opt-out deadline, not a claim deadline.
So if you want a part of the class action, then just sit back and enjoy the check when it arrives. You may have to confirm your address or something, but you aren't required to opt in.
If you instead want to opt out of this class and take your iPod battery problems up with Apple personally (perhaps because you feel the class will not adequately represent your similar claim), you need to opt out of the settlement class.
A group that collectively comprises a monopoly is called a cartel. I think the term applies fairly to the RIAA and MPAA.
Anyone who's ever been the plaintiff in a lawsuit knows that it's not a "short-term moneymaking scheme." Watch the movie A Civil Action to see what life is like for the majority of plaintiffs and their lawyers. It's not short-term and it's not often moneymaking.
Mmmm...newtons. Or did you mean Caramel Apple? I'm confused.
Evidently the people you help have no problem with clicking, icons, or basic reading comprehension. I worked at a bank for too long to trust people in general to handle those elements without trouble.
Isn't that what Clearchannel already is? Some dickhead in a car broadcasting shitty music that millions of asshat radio station managers just rebroadcast to the world?
Why can't they name that icon something better than "Computer"? Don't they realize by now how confused people get when you tell them "Okay, go to My Computer." or "Okay, go to The Computer." or even "Okay, go to Computer." (which just makes you sound retarded)? What's wrong with calling it "System" or something a little bit less obnoxious? "Double-click on System." sounds so much clearer to a layman than does "Double-click on Computer."
Meaningless code snippet:How about throwing code around like it's data? (No need for an example since your EBNF-->Lisp program more than likely did this.)
The article blurb says 30-mile radius. That's over 2,700 square miles. New York City (as in the whole thing) is about 469 square miles, according to here and a conversion from here, and its population (first source again) is about 8,158,000. Granted that it depends on exactly which 2,700 square miles you pick, you should be able to come up with a million people capable of broadcasting in range.
"[I]magine a city like New York where you could have 1000 people all broadcasting[.]" (Emphasis supplied.)
Um. I hate to break this to you, but NYC has a technology-savvy population slightly larger than 1,000. Just slightly. You're almost guaranteed to have that many broadcasting, and easily could have something closer to 1,000,000 broadcasters if enough idiots ride this bandwagon to town.
This is what you would call a Vehicle-Area Network, or VAN for short.
Like I said, "If ... you know that your machine is being used to commit criminal acts," you can be charged with conspiracy. Proving that you knew that is an exercise for the federal prosecutor.
It's only vaporware because they haven't written a Common Lisp for the machine yet. After all, the perfect programming language to target a self-reconfiguring machine is one that can reconfigure itself to keep up with the machine.
It gets worse. If you set yourself up as a C box by running the software, and you know that your machine is being used to commit criminal acts such as piracy, then you and A and B can all be charged together as a conspiracy chain. And it gets even better: in federal court, conspirators are liable for all of the related criminal acts of their co-conspirators. So, if you as C help A and B pirate one mp3, and they use other Cs to pirate 1,000 other mp3s, you can probably all be charged for all 1,001 counts of piracy. Enjoy.