"If congress betrays the people and passes an immoral and unjust law the people don't want, it is not a betrayal of the people nor is it corrupt to ignore it."
This is a strawman fallacy. "The Law" and the "Consitution" are very different things
The constitution is what gave congress authority to create the law. They are following the constitution as written. There is no strawman.
Just because YOU don't like a law they pass does not mean they betrayed anyone
To clarify: I'm talking laws that the majority don't support. This isn't about ME. That's an incorrect assumption you are making.
This is the REAL show of your ignorance and how contradictory and ignorant you are. Which is is? Where they duly passed or are they betraying you? If as you said "massively corrupt" then it is not possible for them to also be "in many cases...duly passed' So you either do not know what duly means or you are clearly not capable of keeping your own view points of of conflict with each other!
There is no contradiction. They were passed according to the rules. But the people didn't actually want them.
that's what voting is for... if you and the rest of your fellow voters are as ignorant as you, then THAT is why you think there is no solution.
Voting isn't a solution. Because there are only two major parties and in your own words...
EVERYTHING IS TRIBAL!! It is human nature,
So how does simply 'voting' get us to a solution?
Well that's dead wrong and another contradictory view point. How can people be basically good on both sides that have such hate for the other side?
Because most of us aren't extremists, and most of us get along just fine. I don't hate the 'other side'. I don't even hate the other sides politicians in the vast majority of instances.
I espouse "follow the law" not because of tribalism but because if you say ignore it then you cannot justify punishing those that break it for their morals either. That is a hypocrisy and hypocrisy like that not far away from murder, because many time such hypocrisy has been used to justify "dehumanizing" others so that their lives become less valuable. You have heard the terms before right? Calling people "inhuman" or saying they are not human?
You're argument is that the law is somehow already just, and that if we break the law we start classifying people as inhuman or devaluing their lives. I'm saying we already are doing that, so its a violation of the law to treat them as human beings.
Is sheltering an illegal migrant who would be killed if they were deported an evil act that reduces their humanity and devalues their life?
Was participating in the underground railroad, clearly in violation of the law of the day, a way to devalue human life?
You are making absolutist arguments that simply do not hold up to scrutiny.
Government tyranny has killed more than all war, pestilence, famine, or disaster.
I'm curious where you draw the lines. War is arguably part of government action, and famine and pestilence often follow in the wake of war.
" If you swear to follow the Constitution and then spend time bending it, then you are obviously intentionally breaching your oath and intentionally betraying The People. The moment you start down this path you are corrupt."
That's hyperbolic nonsense. If congress betrays the people and passes an immoral and unjust law the people don't want, it is not a betrayal of the people nor is it corrupt to ignore it.
And THAT is the problem here: Things are already bent out of shape and massively corrupt. That's our starting position. To blindly enforce the rules exactly as written is just an unjust tyranny of a new sort.
You seem to claim there is something wrong with innocent and decent people rotting in the system... yet the constitution allows much of it. In many cases the laws putting them there have been duly passed, and are enforced as written. Congress must act to legislate the fixes properly. But only a fool think that will happen in this climate, or happen soon. You would perpetrate that injustice while the two tribes bicker, and call anyone who seeks pragmatic expedient moral solutions to help those people... you call them without exception or consideration: corrupt oath breakers.
You do not have a solution. Your idealism, if applied without wisdom and consideration, will only make the problems WORSE.
The constitution does not provide a solution to the current systemic malignancy, if anything, one could argue that it was flawed at its inception that it allowed us to get here. Partisan / Tribalism should never have been allowed to infiltrate the process for approving judges, or justice department officials. The idea that the threat of impeachment would be sufficient to keep a nutball president in check was naive -- really no one could imagine a scenario where a significant chunk of the senate would go along with a bad president ? And blind constitution worship isn't going to find you a path out of this mess now.
The country might still find its way through; the common sense ballot initiatives against gerry mandering had wide bi-partisan support -- that's encouraging at least. The people are basically good on both sides, and even when they don't agree they want the system to be fair.
I don't call it a back stab, more of a 'tit-for-tat' situation. Can you back your claims up with cites?
Paul didn't surprise anyone when he informed Stardock he was going to be releasing a sequel. That was an open discussion ALL along. The only area of possible debate there is the timing... that Paul may have timed his announcement to leverage the existing publicity of Origins being near launch, and that was a bit of a dick move, that both sides could have handled more graciously.
And remember, Paul didn't sell Stardock anything for $400k; so its not like they reneged on anything. They bought whatever they bought from Atari's bankruptcy management in a bankruptcy auction.
Meanwhile, yes Stardock was trying to play nicer originally, and yes they made an offer to Paul and Fred; that they ulimately rejected for reasons unknown. (Which as the owners of the IP is their right) and then Stardock started selling SC1 and SC2 on steam...
"And then thereâ(TM)s GOG, which actually was selling Star Control and Star Control II back in 2011. GOG claimed it was selling the titles under an existing agreement with Atari, but Ford and Reiche notified GOG that Atari didnâ(TM)t have the power to make such an agreement because Reiche owned the gamesâ(TM) copyrights. According to the counterclaim, GOG questioned Atari on this point, and Atariâ"after consulting its attorneysâ"agreed that Ford and Reiche were correct. The parties then renegotiated a distribution agreement that cut Ford and Reiche into the royalties, and GOG resumed selling the titles."
So even Atari agreed in 2011 that it didn't own SC 1 and SC 2 anymore, so how could Stardock have bought rights to them from Atari exactly?
So at this point Stardock wasn't playing nice anymore, and Paul and Fred issued DMCA takedowns, then Startdock sued them, then they countersued stardock... and so on, until here we are.
You can argue rightfully that both sides made mistakes, and played rough. I won't dispute that. You can raise the argument that Stardock paid ~400k for _something_ and if that something is actually nothing, then you can rightfully call them legitimate victims here... victims of their own failure to do diligence, victims of their own lawyers, victims of Atari's bankrupty proceedings... but not victims of Paul and Fred.
Paul and Fred shouldn't have to make any compromises, on the rights to a thing they clearly own, just because Stardock went and got itself royally ripped off by a now bankrupt 3rd party. Could Paul and Fred have been more lenient with Stardock... sure, but they don't have any obligation there at all. On the other hand, Stardock hasn't got a leg to stand on... they were in no position to play hardball except perhaps as a moderately succesfull corporation they may have had more money than Paul and Fred to throw around to try and win that way. But morally? They aren't on the high ground here at all. Although my sympathy genuinely does go to startdock for the $400k they spent on what was minimal at best... and may be even less than that.
I mean sure he's got motive and its possible. But I could see any number of fans doing this entirely on their own too. Or any number of haters too for that matter.
Yup. Agreed. But it appears they were screwed by their own lawyers, and/or the people who sold them what they bought.
But they weren't buying from the original authors; they bought what they bought from the bankrupt shell of a company that owned the trademark and some distribution rights from the original authors, or something along that line.
"It's an original work not using any of the original assets. Copyright covers a particular work (i.e. the original)."
Then why can't i publish all my Harry Potter fanfiction about different wizardly students?
Copyright has long held to cover particular fictional 'settings'. We can all publish books that take place in Chicago or New York, but good luck publishing your novel about some villains in Gotham City, especially if you keep making references to Wayne Enterprises and Arkham Asylum... even if you don't mention Batman anywhere by name.
Generally I'm with you BUT, there doesn't need to be a provision in the DMCA for damages, they can simply sue for damages, and show that they were actually harmed. Although that will likely need to wait until they are exonerated... assuming they are exonerated, which is dubious.
"and overall the industry seems extremely slow to act on counter-notifications"
True... but i don't think the actions of the RIAA/MPAA on Youtube and Facebook or whatever are representative of what a DMCA takedown notice for a game on GoG or Steam. The former is a gigantic cluster fuck of mostly automated systemic abuse on all sides... the DMCA take downs for a title on GoG and Steam are going to be relatively unusual events... even a rarity... so i don't think the industry as a whole should be used to calibrate your expectations here.
This is a pretty unique situation.
GoG and Valve have likely taken some time to respond because of that.
It's very much exactly what stardock would have been allowed to create... its a 'star control' style game, with exploration and planets and top down battles, and its called star control (because they had the trademark), but its not really connected to the previous games at all in any way. I think maybe there's a one sentence in the manual like... Welcome to starcontrol 3, which takes place 1000 years later in another corner of another galaxy..." and that pretty much ends its connection to the previous games.
Atari knew all they had was the trademark, and the franchise goodwill that it came with. It wasn't a bad game, but it was no star control 2.
I suspect Stardock could probably have created a game in the StarControl 3 corner of the universe with the Doog and the rest of the SC3 races but that isn't exactly what people are clamoring for when they want 'moar star control'. But stardock definitely doesn't own the copyright on the original content and original races.
"The real problem started when Stardock went to try to block Paul and Fred, which was just bad form..."
Yeah, I agree. Although if Lucas ever tries to do more star war i hope Disney shuts him down.:p That said, I'd prefer it if Disney stopped doing more star wars too.
Yes, the IP situation is odd, but they clearly knew it was odd AND contentious BEFORE they started writing code so they should have worked it out ahead of time.
The situation started because "Ford and Reiche" sold the rights to the Star Control trademark(name). And after they had sold that, they announced that that they were creating a successor to Star Control. And they are obviously not allowed to do that.
Actually they absolutely can. They sold the trademark. Trademarks are funny things, they don't come with any of the copyrights. They are JUST the name. As long as the sequel doesn't use the $NAME, they can use everything else.
but they claim they don't use it(And thus don't need it), because Star Control: Origin contains their own ip, set in the Star Control universe.
They could have made a star control style game like starcontrol 3's relationship to starcontrol 1/2, and called it star control because they DO own the name... but they apparently reference the Arilou, and apparently had DLC with the Melnorme in it etc... so they very likely crossed the line into using IP they don't own.
"Somehow unrelated: Star Dock had the right to sell the old Star Control games."
In much the same way buying (non-exclusive!!) rights to distribute the Ghostbusters movie doesn't give you copyright on the movie, or any of its songs, or rights to the future of the franchise etc. You have a right to make copies of that one thing and to sell those copies. That's it.
I like Stardock games, and I've read good things about star control: origins, although I haven't purchased it (yet). I was a big fan of the originals, and planned on buying the one from the authors too... (Ghosts of the Precursors) when it comes out.
TFA has a pretty good summary though, of why stardock is to blame here, in the judges own words:
âoeThe harm Plaintiff [Stardock] complains of is indeed of its own making,â writes Armstrong. âoePlaintiff had knowledge of Defendantsâ(TM) [Ford and Reicheâ(TM)s] copyright claims from the outset. Despite that knowledge, it developed potentially infringing material without resolution of the IP ownership issues, and then publicized the release of that material during the pendency of this action. It now claims that its investment in Origins and reputation are on the line. Given that Plaintiff largely created the foregoing predicament, the Court is disinclined to extricate Plaintiff from a peril of its own making.â
It was beyond foolish to produce the game without resolving the IP conflicts which were a known issue from day zero. It's not like this copyright action came out of nowhere.
"I noticed you keep harping on the fact I wanted to "fly my drone over a parade with a crowd of people", as though such a thing is terrible behavior."
There have already been a few cases of drones crashing into crowds at such events; causing minor injuries (including at least one that needed stitches.)
Its just a matter of time before it hits a senior causing a fall and a broken hip or worse, or it hits someone in the face causing a broken nose, broken teeth, scarring etc.
"In reality, our town only has a total population of about 6,000 and it's far from the WHOLE town that shows up at these parades. Additionally, there is usually someone flying a drone at these events to capture them on video"
There's a difference between someone operating in some professional and official capacity, adhering to strict guidelines, and a bunch of rando parade goers just showing up with their drones. You made it sound like the latter should be ok.
"so people can enjoy viewing it later on Facebook. (Our city has its own Facebook group.)"
Gross.
"And that's a total worst case scenario that really shouldn't happen anyway."
But they do happen. Anything from a bird attack to a battery/electrical system failure could cause the thing to fall like a stone.
" I've *never* seen drones just littering the sky by the dozens!"
As soon as their popularity started taking off everywhere started banning them. Even one operating nearby is annoyng. 4 or 5 within earshot is obnoxious.
" I'm not going to even attempt to keep flying my drone if 12 other people, often flying other DJI branded products, are nearby with other ones! Too easy to lose control of it."
Well I'm so glad you are one of the responsible drone owners who only wants to fly over crowds in town during a parade; but not if 5 other people out of the thousands showing up had the same idea first.;)
You think if it were allowed, only 5 people would do it, and everyone else with a drone would just stand around wishing one of the others would land so that they could take off? Surely you know there's no shortage of asshats out there. (And no im not accusing you of being one of them.)
Seriously, so what is the middle ground here? Should they require licenses and issue permits to the first 5 people who want to operate a drone at X or Y on a given day? That's not going to work.
"All you need to do is have park rangers use *common sense* and put a stop to problems like a dozen drone operators stupidly trying to fly in the same spot, in the park."
But the thing about drones is that they're unmanned, and operate out of LOS. What is the park ranger supposed to do run around the national park checking everyone holding a smartphone? In the vain hope that the owner isn't actually in a parking lot or side road outside the park?
"The sound of one or even two drones operating in a large open space in a national or state park is NOT going to be a real noise problem."
zzz ZZZZZ zzz ZZZZ zzzz ZZZZ.... as they buzz the picnic area, the beach. They've banned motorboats and jetskis in a lot of areas too for the noise.
You are RIGHT though, many of the national parks are pretty big, and I agree completely that there really should be areas designated for all manner of such toys. And drone owners aren't alone in this... jetskis, snowmobiles, dirtbikes, quadbikes, and even non-motorized mountain bikers are all looking for appropriate spaces to enjoy their hobbies and they're all banned from places where the general public want to play without their intrusions.
Drone operators are the worst though (again not you particularly) just because the barrier to entry is soooo low, and they're new so regulations and culture hasn't caught up, and so many of them think they should have the right to fly over my back yard, zip around the picnic area at the park etc. Their misbehaviour has drawn some over reactions.
In theory they have a lot in common with the RC plane, and model rocket crowds, but in practice they don't overlap that much.
" That's where everyone went to fly kites back when I was a kid. Lots of open space and often some good scenery worth capturing on video during a flight." But no! So many of the State and National parks are starting to ban drone usage too!"
A large field with 20 or 30 kites is fun for everyone, the fliers, the people walking by, etc.
A large field with 20 or 30 drones is not. It sounds like a dirtbike in the sky, which scares the birds, and generally annoys the other park goers.
The RC aircraft people; and the model rocket people... never were a problem like this. First they were a lot rarer. The hobby was moderately expensive; and it required some actual skill and practice both to maintain the craft and to fly it, they only ever operated in big wide *empty* open spaces, and by and large they were extremely respectful of everyone else.
"Even... Veteran's Day Parade, I wanted to use my drone to capture an overhead view of all the floats and vehicles going down our main street"
Drone owners on the other hand think they should all be allowed to litter the sky with them over a crowded street in the middle of town...
"If my dad was still alive to see this, I'm sure he'd be really agitated about all the regulations. He grew up building gasoline powered model airplanes and later, got his pilot's license... and would NEVER go along with all of these restrictions on private individuals flying drones for fun."
Hard to say. I don't know your Dad. But riddle me this, did he ever EVER fly his gasoline powered model in town, over a crowded street, during a parade?
I know mine would have slapped me upside the head for even suggesting it.
The fact that MS bought additional functionality from Citrix rather than building it all over again themselves in house to enhance NT5 is hardly the revelation you seem to think it is.
Yeah, but NT domain controllers did much of the same things prior to AD; including managing accounts and groups and permissions. So that's what 80% now?
Oh, and NT4 was available as a terminal server in 1998. So it even actually had some true multiuser back then. Guess technically, that edition at least, is even a 'network operating system' by your own preferred definition.
Last time I checked, which admittedly was a few years ago, file locking and some other basic functions still don't work reliably on NTFS
lol, Is this where i complain about the power management failures of linux on my old laptop? Or not... because I've never said Windows made the best fileservers... and probably never will.:)
Now you are moving the goalposts. You said you wanted a "network operating system" 20 years ago, not a "multi-user" operating system.
WinNT 3 had solid networking baked into it; was designed to access resources over the network, to share resources over the network, was designed to be joined to network domains.
But sure it was still a primarily designed to have a single interactive user at a time; although it did support services and service accounts.
A network operating system is one that *assumes* use is over the network by default.
Wikipedia has two definitions... and neither one of them aligns with your assertion.
I agree with you that Windows, especially at the time, was not a multi-user operating system in the sense you intended, but the term network operating system does NOT automatically imply what you intended.
Setting the graphical shell to hide the other guy's "My Documents" folder is not what makes a multi-user, network OS.
That only applied to the Win9x line.
NT had NTFS, and even back then it let you restrict access to other users data. NT had proper user accounts. It had proper permissions. The only things it didn't have was simultaneous interactive users, and remote desktop support/terminal server services.
" Originally, almost 20 years ago, the reason I used Linux was because I needed a network operating system that had "
Your getting old mate. 20 years ago Windows NT was already pretty mature, and was built from the ground up to be part of a network, to support multiple users, and to have hardware abstraction.
" until recently was called Disk Operating System"
Again, it hasn't been called that for MORE than 20 years now; not exactly 'recently'. To put it into perspective, MSDOS has now been discontinued longer than it existed. (Yes Win95 to WinME still rested to varying degrees on top of that legacy, but even Windows 95 reported
Microsoft Windows 95 4.00.950 B
from the command prompt, "ver" command; and by windows ME even "DOS Mode" wasn't functional anymore. And it wasn't called "DOS" by anyone.
Strictly speaking he broke the laws of Canada too; Canadian authorities just had no real interest in prosecuting him except as a nuisance, especially as wind was already in the air for legalization in Canada. Plus his operation was more a bona fide political movement than as a criminal 'drug dealer'.
Nevertheless at the time, it was still illegal in both jurisdictions, and the treaties in place with the US meant that as a matter of law they could request his arrest and extradition.
I strongly suspect this Meng case is likely entirely legal as well. Canada would not have arrested her and provoked China like this if the legal backing wasn't rock solid.
Frankly, i think the solution here is for cities to relax the bans on gasoline cars to exclude collectors items insured as collectors cars with collector plates. If you are driving it on Sunday's only, and keeping it restored to original specs, its contribution to pollution is minimal, and its contribution to culture and tradition and history far outweighs that.
Just as we won't tear down a heritage building even if we could replace it with a better insulated more energy efficient one; we shouldn't ruin a classic car.
If I went downtown and it was all electrics with a couple vintage collectibles thrown into the mix; a 30s dodge; a Porsche 356, 60s Corvette, to see those preserved and original, would just make the world better.
Ripping the engine out of an Aston Martin... ruins it. If you want a classic aston electrified... just make a kit-car for that. It'll be just as much fun, and doesn't ruin actual classic aston martins.
Since this is/. and this is about cars, here's a computer analogy this would be like buying a working Altair, or Mark-8, or Micral-N, or PDP-8, or Apple 1,.. then throwing the guts out and sticking a raspberry pi in it.
I mean if you've got a competely nonfunctional one, sure, its a great way to recycle it and make something useful and retro... but to destroy a working unit just to make a fun housing for a pi... that's demented.
First. No. Having to do basically the same thing twice does NOT make it twice as difficult.
Is making two omelettes twice as difficult as making one? Twice as many eggs. Sure. Twice as time consuming maybe. But twice as difficult? No. If you can make one, then making a 2nd one does not really increase the difficulty of the task.
Second, boosting the signal from the car is easier. You know exactly where the car is, your within physical contact wit hti. You are trying to steal it after all. Finding and boosting the signal from the fob is harder, but if they've already got that part figured out boosting the signal from the car is only nominally more effort.
" But this action seems counter to that, and feels counter to their core beliefs. Sure, they market themselves as a SE that doesn't track you, but the demographic that uses them isn't going to be pleased by this."
Meh. not really.
bangs are basically a type of hosted 'form bookmark'; where you can select an online form, complete it, and submit it all from the address bar.
!g xyz
is basically, go to the page booked mark named !g, put xyz in the search field, and then submit the form.
I don't think anyone *really* expects ddg to provide and maintain such booksmarks to pirate sites.
"If the individual parts don't have any environmental impact, neither does the whole."
One hunter kills all the deer, and you have no herd next year, or ever.
One hunter kills one deer, and you have no lasting impact. the herd will continue just fine.
Gather up enough hunters, and let them each kill one deer, instead of having no lasting effect by summing up all those 'no effects' you end up with the catastrophic effect where you have no herd next year (or ever).
"This is basic logic."
Even in basic logic this is a phenomena, just look at numerical stability analysis. Where catastrophic errors can accumulate in otherwise innocuous operations if you aren't careful. If you are just dividing a couple numbers the instability isn't relevant, but if you are doing millions of divisions in a connected system you might want to take a closer look to make sure you are not accumulating error effects that will come to dominate the results.
Likewise, Apple is not a monopoly either, with 43.5% of US smartphone owners running some form of iOS.
a) Monopoly does not require a sole vendor; you can have monopoly power and abuse it without being the only game in town. (See Microsoft's antitrust suit) 43% is huge; especially when the other smartphone OS is basically controlled by another single vendor. So we have a duopoly at best.
b) No one said they have have monopoly on smartphones. They have a monopoly on iphone apps.
Monopolies aren't inherently illegal. But they are subject to review and regulation in the public interest. In a case like this one element that strengthens the case against apple is that the consumer is tied to apple with an expensive phone. For a consumer to change what apps they buy they have to abandon a *separate* expensive product in the phone itself.
If I get pissed at chevron, i can just start buying gas somewhere else. I don't have to get a whole different car. I can get replacement parts from 3rd parties, I can get service from 3rd parties, i can install a stereo made by a 3rd party. etc etc. I can exercise my freedom to buy goods and services from whoever i want, without having to get a new car first.
Likewise, if get pissed at google play, i can get apps somewhere else. And in fact I do generally get my android apps from f-droid, and most of my games are from the humblebundle store for android. If I get pissed at steam there are some games i won't be able to buy, but there are plenty of other stores willing to provide me with PC software. I don't have to buy a new computer.
See the difference?
Now you can argue (rightfully) that consumers (should) know the deal with apple going in so caveat emptor; and that's a fair argument. But that doesn't automatically make it legal beyond reproach; the court should hear it.
You can also argue (rightfully) that its similar too or even exactly the same thing console makers do; and that's a good argument too. I do think there is a qualitative difference between a toy and an almost essential tool though; such that consumers don't necessarily need the same protection from Nintendo with respect to the availability of DS software as they do for their smartphones. Again that's a determination for the court.
Personally, I think Apple's store monopoly should be broken for the good of the market as a whole. There is a LOT of stuff that should be available that isn't or that is more of pain than it should be because of Apple's store monopoly. It's *the* primary reason I don't use an Apple phone myself.
Slashdot Mirror
"If congress betrays the people and passes an immoral and unjust law the people don't want, it is not a betrayal of the people nor is it corrupt to ignore it."
This is a strawman fallacy. "The Law" and the "Consitution" are very different things
The constitution is what gave congress authority to create the law. They are following the constitution as written. There is no strawman.
Just because YOU don't like a law they pass does not mean they betrayed anyone
To clarify: I'm talking laws that the majority don't support. This isn't about ME. That's an incorrect assumption you are making.
This is the REAL show of your ignorance and how contradictory and ignorant you are. Which is is? Where they duly passed or are they betraying you? If as you said "massively corrupt" then it is not possible for them to also be "in many cases...duly passed' So you either do not know what duly means or you are clearly not capable of keeping your own view points of of conflict with each other!
There is no contradiction. They were passed according to the rules. But the people didn't actually want them.
that's what voting is for... if you and the rest of your fellow voters are as ignorant as you, then THAT is why you think there is no solution.
Voting isn't a solution. Because there are only two major parties and in your own words...
EVERYTHING IS TRIBAL!! It is human nature,
So how does simply 'voting' get us to a solution?
Well that's dead wrong and another contradictory view point. How can people be basically good on both sides that have such hate for the other side?
Because most of us aren't extremists, and most of us get along just fine. I don't hate the 'other side'. I don't even hate the other sides politicians in the vast majority of instances.
I espouse "follow the law" not because of tribalism but because if you say ignore it then you cannot justify punishing those that break it for their morals either. That is a hypocrisy and hypocrisy like that not far away from murder, because many time such hypocrisy has been used to justify "dehumanizing" others so that their lives become less valuable. You have heard the terms before right? Calling people "inhuman" or saying they are not human?
You're argument is that the law is somehow already just, and that if we break the law we start classifying people as inhuman or devaluing their lives. I'm saying we already are doing that, so its a violation of the law to treat them as human beings.
Is sheltering an illegal migrant who would be killed if they were deported an evil act that reduces their humanity and devalues their life?
Was participating in the underground railroad, clearly in violation of the law of the day, a way to devalue human life?
You are making absolutist arguments that simply do not hold up to scrutiny.
Government tyranny has killed more than all war, pestilence, famine, or disaster.
I'm curious where you draw the lines. War is arguably part of government action, and famine and pestilence often follow in the wake of war.
" If you swear to follow the Constitution and then spend time bending it, then you are obviously intentionally breaching your oath and intentionally betraying The People. The moment you start down this path you are corrupt."
That's hyperbolic nonsense. If congress betrays the people and passes an immoral and unjust law the people don't want, it is not a betrayal of the people nor is it corrupt to ignore it.
And THAT is the problem here: Things are already bent out of shape and massively corrupt. That's our starting position. To blindly enforce the rules exactly as written is just an unjust tyranny of a new sort.
You seem to claim there is something wrong with innocent and decent people rotting in the system... yet the constitution allows much of it. In many cases the laws putting them there have been duly passed, and are enforced as written. Congress must act to legislate the fixes properly. But only a fool think that will happen in this climate, or happen soon. You would perpetrate that injustice while the two tribes bicker, and call anyone who seeks pragmatic expedient moral solutions to help those people... you call them without exception or consideration: corrupt oath breakers.
You do not have a solution. Your idealism, if applied without wisdom and consideration, will only make the problems WORSE.
The constitution does not provide a solution to the current systemic malignancy, if anything, one could argue that it was flawed at its inception that it allowed us to get here. Partisan / Tribalism should never have been allowed to infiltrate the process for approving judges, or justice department officials. The idea that the threat of impeachment would be sufficient to keep a nutball president in check was naive -- really no one could imagine a scenario where a significant chunk of the senate would go along with a bad president ? And blind constitution worship isn't going to find you a path out of this mess now.
The country might still find its way through; the common sense ballot initiatives against gerry mandering had wide bi-partisan support -- that's encouraging at least. The people are basically good on both sides, and even when they don't agree they want the system to be fair.
I don't call it a back stab, more of a 'tit-for-tat' situation. Can you back your claims up with cites?
Paul didn't surprise anyone when he informed Stardock he was going to be releasing a sequel. That was an open discussion ALL along. The only area of possible debate there is the timing... that Paul may have timed his announcement to leverage the existing publicity of Origins being near launch, and that was a bit of a dick move, that both sides could have handled more graciously.
And remember, Paul didn't sell Stardock anything for $400k; so its not like they reneged on anything. They bought whatever they bought from Atari's bankruptcy management in a bankruptcy auction.
Meanwhile, yes Stardock was trying to play nicer originally, and yes they made an offer to Paul and Fred; that they ulimately rejected for reasons unknown. (Which as the owners of the IP is their right) and then Stardock started selling SC1 and SC2 on steam...
"And then thereâ(TM)s GOG, which actually was selling Star Control and Star Control II back in 2011. GOG claimed it was selling the titles under an existing agreement with Atari, but Ford and Reiche notified GOG that Atari didnâ(TM)t have the power to make such an agreement because Reiche owned the gamesâ(TM) copyrights. According to the counterclaim, GOG questioned Atari on this point, and Atariâ"after consulting its attorneysâ"agreed that Ford and Reiche were correct. The parties then renegotiated a distribution agreement that cut Ford and Reiche into the royalties, and GOG resumed selling the titles."
https://arstechnica.com/tech-p...
So even Atari agreed in 2011 that it didn't own SC 1 and SC 2 anymore, so how could Stardock have bought rights to them from Atari exactly?
So at this point Stardock wasn't playing nice anymore, and Paul and Fred issued DMCA takedowns, then Startdock sued them, then they countersued stardock... and so on, until here we are.
You can argue rightfully that both sides made mistakes, and played rough. I won't dispute that. You can raise the argument that Stardock paid ~400k for _something_ and if that something is actually nothing, then you can rightfully call them legitimate victims here... victims of their own failure to do diligence, victims of their own lawyers, victims of Atari's bankrupty proceedings... but not victims of Paul and Fred.
Paul and Fred shouldn't have to make any compromises, on the rights to a thing they clearly own, just because Stardock went and got itself royally ripped off by a now bankrupt 3rd party. Could Paul and Fred have been more lenient with Stardock... sure, but they don't have any obligation there at all. On the other hand, Stardock hasn't got a leg to stand on... they were in no position to play hardball except perhaps as a moderately succesfull corporation they may have had more money than Paul and Fred to throw around to try and win that way. But morally? They aren't on the high ground here at all. Although my sympathy genuinely does go to startdock for the $400k they spent on what was minimal at best... and may be even less than that.
What makes you think PewDiePie is behind it?
I mean sure he's got motive and its possible. But I could see any number of fans doing this entirely on their own too. Or any number of haters too for that matter.
Yup. Agreed. But it appears they were screwed by their own lawyers, and/or the people who sold them what they bought.
But they weren't buying from the original authors; they bought what they bought from the bankrupt shell of a company that owned the trademark and some distribution rights from the original authors, or something along that line.
"It's an original work not using any of the original assets. Copyright covers a particular work (i.e. the original)."
Then why can't i publish all my Harry Potter fanfiction about different wizardly students?
Copyright has long held to cover particular fictional 'settings'. We can all publish books that take place in Chicago or New York, but good luck publishing your novel about some villains in Gotham City, especially if you keep making references to Wayne Enterprises and Arkham Asylum... even if you don't mention Batman anywhere by name.
Generally I'm with you BUT, there doesn't need to be a provision in the DMCA for damages, they can simply sue for damages, and show that they were actually harmed. Although that will likely need to wait until they are exonerated ... assuming they are exonerated, which is dubious.
"and overall the industry seems extremely slow to act on counter-notifications"
True... but i don't think the actions of the RIAA/MPAA on Youtube and Facebook or whatever are representative of what a DMCA takedown notice for a game on GoG or Steam. The former is a gigantic cluster fuck of mostly automated systemic abuse on all sides... the DMCA take downs for a title on GoG and Steam are going to be relatively unusual events... even a rarity... so i don't think the industry as a whole should be used to calibrate your expectations here.
This is a pretty unique situation.
GoG and Valve have likely taken some time to respond because of that.
StarControl 3 ... first have you played it?
It's very much exactly what stardock would have been allowed to create... its a 'star control' style game, with exploration and planets and top down battles, and its called star control (because they had the trademark), but its not really connected to the previous games at all in any way. I think maybe there's a one sentence in the manual like ... Welcome to starcontrol 3, which takes place 1000 years later in another corner of another galaxy..." and that pretty much ends its connection to the previous games.
Atari knew all they had was the trademark, and the franchise goodwill that it came with. It wasn't a bad game, but it was no star control 2.
I suspect Stardock could probably have created a game in the StarControl 3 corner of the universe with the Doog and the rest of the SC3 races but that isn't exactly what people are clamoring for when they want 'moar star control'. But stardock definitely doesn't own the copyright on the original content and original races.
"The real problem started when Stardock went to try to block Paul and Fred, which was just bad form..."
Yeah, I agree. Although if Lucas ever tries to do more star war i hope Disney shuts him down. :p That said, I'd prefer it if Disney stopped doing more star wars too.
Yes, the IP situation is odd, but they clearly knew it was odd AND contentious BEFORE they started writing code so they should have worked it out ahead of time.
The situation started because "Ford and Reiche" sold the rights to the Star Control trademark(name). And after they had sold that, they announced that that they were creating a successor to Star Control. And they are obviously not allowed to do that.
Actually they absolutely can. They sold the trademark. Trademarks are funny things, they don't come with any of the copyrights. They are JUST the name. As long as the sequel doesn't use the $NAME, they can use everything else.
but they claim they don't use it(And thus don't need it), because Star Control: Origin contains their own ip, set in the Star Control universe.
They could have made a star control style game like starcontrol 3's relationship to starcontrol 1/2, and called it star control because they DO own the name... but they apparently reference the Arilou, and apparently had DLC with the Melnorme in it etc... so they very likely crossed the line into using IP they don't own.
"Somehow unrelated: Star Dock had the right to sell the old Star Control games."
In much the same way buying (non-exclusive!!) rights to distribute the Ghostbusters movie doesn't give you copyright on the movie, or any of its songs, or rights to the future of the franchise etc. You have a right to make copies of that one thing and to sell those copies. That's it.
I like Stardock games, and I've read good things about star control: origins, although I haven't purchased it (yet). I was a big fan of the originals, and planned on buying the one from the authors too... (Ghosts of the Precursors) when it comes out.
TFA has a pretty good summary though, of why stardock is to blame here, in the judges own words:
âoeThe harm Plaintiff [Stardock] complains of is indeed of its own making,â writes Armstrong. âoePlaintiff had knowledge of Defendantsâ(TM) [Ford and Reicheâ(TM)s] copyright claims from the outset. Despite that knowledge, it developed potentially infringing material without resolution of the IP ownership issues, and then publicized the release of that material during the pendency of this action. It now claims that its investment in Origins and reputation are on the line. Given that Plaintiff largely created the foregoing predicament, the Court is disinclined to extricate Plaintiff from a peril of its own making.â
It was beyond foolish to produce the game without resolving the IP conflicts which were a known issue from day zero. It's not like this copyright action came out of nowhere.
"I noticed you keep harping on the fact I wanted to "fly my drone over a parade with a crowd of people", as though such a thing is terrible behavior."
There have already been a few cases of drones crashing into crowds at such events; causing minor injuries (including at least one that needed stitches.)
Its just a matter of time before it hits a senior causing a fall and a broken hip or worse, or it hits someone in the face causing a broken nose, broken teeth, scarring etc.
"In reality, our town only has a total population of about 6,000 and it's far from the WHOLE town that shows up at these parades. Additionally, there is usually someone flying a drone at these events to capture them on video"
There's a difference between someone operating in some professional and official capacity, adhering to strict guidelines, and a bunch of rando parade goers just showing up with their drones. You made it sound like the latter should be ok.
"so people can enjoy viewing it later on Facebook. (Our city has its own Facebook group.)"
Gross.
"And that's a total worst case scenario that really shouldn't happen anyway."
But they do happen. Anything from a bird attack to a battery/electrical system failure could cause the thing to fall like a stone.
" I've *never* seen drones just littering the sky by the dozens!"
As soon as their popularity started taking off everywhere started banning them. Even one operating nearby is annoyng. 4 or 5 within earshot is obnoxious.
" I'm not going to even attempt to keep flying my drone if 12 other people, often flying other DJI branded products, are nearby with other ones! Too easy to lose control of it."
Well I'm so glad you are one of the responsible drone owners who only wants to fly over crowds in town during a parade; but not if 5 other people out of the thousands showing up had the same idea first. ;)
You think if it were allowed, only 5 people would do it, and everyone else with a drone would just stand around wishing one of the others would land so that they could take off? Surely you know there's no shortage of asshats out there. (And no im not accusing you of being one of them.)
Seriously, so what is the middle ground here? Should they require licenses and issue permits to the first 5 people who want to operate a drone at X or Y on a given day? That's not going to work.
"All you need to do is have park rangers use *common sense* and put a stop to problems like a dozen drone operators stupidly trying to fly in the same spot, in the park."
But the thing about drones is that they're unmanned, and operate out of LOS. What is the park ranger supposed to do run around the national park checking everyone holding a smartphone? In the vain hope that the owner isn't actually in a parking lot or side road outside the park?
"The sound of one or even two drones operating in a large open space in a national or state park is NOT going to be a real noise problem."
zzz ZZZZZ zzz ZZZZ zzzz ZZZZ .... as they buzz the picnic area, the beach. They've banned motorboats and jetskis in a lot of areas too for the noise.
You are RIGHT though, many of the national parks are pretty big, and I agree completely that there really should be areas designated for all manner of such toys. And drone owners aren't alone in this ... jetskis, snowmobiles, dirtbikes, quadbikes, and even non-motorized mountain bikers are all looking for appropriate spaces to enjoy their hobbies and they're all banned from places where the general public want to play without their intrusions.
Drone operators are the worst though (again not you particularly) just because the barrier to entry is soooo low, and they're new so regulations and culture hasn't caught up, and so many of them think they should have the right to fly over my back yard, zip around the picnic area at the park etc. Their misbehaviour has drawn some over reactions.
In theory they have a lot in common with the RC plane, and model rocket crowds, but in practice they don't overlap that much.
" That's where everyone went to fly kites back when I was a kid. Lots of open space and often some good scenery worth capturing on video during a flight." But no! So many of the State and National parks are starting to ban drone usage too!"
A large field with 20 or 30 kites is fun for everyone, the fliers, the people walking by, etc.
A large field with 20 or 30 drones is not. It sounds like a dirtbike in the sky, which scares the birds, and generally annoys the other park goers.
The RC aircraft people; and the model rocket people... never were a problem like this. First they were a lot rarer. The hobby was moderately expensive; and it required some actual skill and practice both to maintain the craft and to fly it, they only ever operated in big wide *empty* open spaces, and by and large they were extremely respectful of everyone else.
"Even ... Veteran's Day Parade, I wanted to use my drone to capture an overhead view of all the floats and vehicles going down our main street"
Drone owners on the other hand think they should all be allowed to litter the sky with them over a crowded street in the middle of town...
"If my dad was still alive to see this, I'm sure he'd be really agitated about all the regulations. He grew up building gasoline powered model airplanes and later, got his pilot's license ... and would NEVER go along with all of these restrictions on private individuals flying drones for fun."
Hard to say. I don't know your Dad. But riddle me this, did he ever EVER fly his gasoline powered model in town, over a crowded street, during a parade?
I know mine would have slapped me upside the head for even suggesting it.
NT4 already had terminal services edition in 98.
The fact that MS bought additional functionality from Citrix rather than building it all over again themselves in house to enhance NT5 is hardly the revelation you seem to think it is.
That's great (assuming you actually want to use facebook for some reason); but it does nothing to hide your location or ip address from them.
"Active directory came out with Windows 2000."
Yeah, but NT domain controllers did much of the same things prior to AD; including managing accounts and groups and permissions. So that's what 80% now?
Oh, and NT4 was available as a terminal server in 1998. So it even actually had some true multiuser back then. Guess technically, that edition at least, is even a 'network operating system' by your own preferred definition.
https://news.microsoft.com/199...
Last time I checked, which admittedly was a few years ago, file locking and some other basic functions still don't work reliably on NTFS
lol, Is this where i complain about the power management failures of linux on my old laptop? Or not... because I've never said Windows made the best fileservers... and probably never will. :)
Now you are moving the goalposts. You said you wanted a "network operating system" 20 years ago, not a "multi-user" operating system.
WinNT 3 had solid networking baked into it; was designed to access resources over the network, to share resources over the network, was designed to be joined to network domains.
But sure it was still a primarily designed to have a single interactive user at a time; although it did support services and service accounts.
A network operating system is one that *assumes* use is over the network by default.
Wikipedia has two definitions... and neither one of them aligns with your assertion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I agree with you that Windows, especially at the time, was not a multi-user operating system in the sense you intended, but the term network operating system does NOT automatically imply what you intended.
Setting the graphical shell to hide the other guy's "My Documents" folder is not what makes a multi-user, network OS.
That only applied to the Win9x line.
NT had NTFS, and even back then it let you restrict access to other users data. NT had proper user accounts. It had proper permissions. The only things it didn't have was simultaneous interactive users, and remote desktop support/terminal server services.
" Originally, almost 20 years ago, the reason I used Linux was because I needed a network operating system that had "
Your getting old mate. 20 years ago Windows NT was already pretty mature, and was built from the ground up to be part of a network, to support multiple users, and to have hardware abstraction.
" until recently was called Disk Operating System"
Again, it hasn't been called that for MORE than 20 years now; not exactly 'recently'. To put it into perspective, MSDOS has now been discontinued longer than it existed. (Yes Win95 to WinME still rested to varying degrees on top of that legacy, but even Windows 95 reported
Microsoft Windows 95
4.00.950 B
from the command prompt, "ver" command; and by windows ME even "DOS Mode" wasn't functional anymore. And it wasn't called "DOS" by anyone.
Strictly speaking he broke the laws of Canada too; Canadian authorities just had no real interest in prosecuting him except as a nuisance, especially as wind was already in the air for legalization in Canada. Plus his operation was more a bona fide political movement than as a criminal 'drug dealer'.
Nevertheless at the time, it was still illegal in both jurisdictions, and the treaties in place with the US meant that as a matter of law they could request his arrest and extradition.
I strongly suspect this Meng case is likely entirely legal as well. Canada would not have arrested her and provoked China like this if the legal backing wasn't rock solid.
Frankly, i think the solution here is for cities to relax the bans on gasoline cars to exclude collectors items insured as collectors cars with collector plates. If you are driving it on Sunday's only, and keeping it restored to original specs, its contribution to pollution is minimal, and its contribution to culture and tradition and history far outweighs that.
Just as we won't tear down a heritage building even if we could replace it with a better insulated more energy efficient one; we shouldn't ruin a classic car.
If I went downtown and it was all electrics with a couple vintage collectibles thrown into the mix; a 30s dodge; a Porsche 356, 60s Corvette, to see those preserved and original, would just make the world better.
Ripping the engine out of an Aston Martin... ruins it. If you want a classic aston electrified... just make a kit-car for that. It'll be just as much fun, and doesn't ruin actual classic aston martins.
Since this is /. and this is about cars, here's a computer analogy this would be like buying a working Altair, or Mark-8, or Micral-N, or PDP-8, or Apple 1, .. then throwing the guts out and sticking a raspberry pi in it.
I mean if you've got a competely nonfunctional one, sure, its a great way to recycle it and make something useful and retro... but to destroy a working unit just to make a fun housing for a pi... that's demented.
" It's more than twice as difficult to do this."
First. No. Having to do basically the same thing twice does NOT make it twice as difficult.
Is making two omelettes twice as difficult as making one? Twice as many eggs. Sure. Twice as time consuming maybe. But twice as difficult? No. If you can make one, then making a 2nd one does not really increase the difficulty of the task.
Second, boosting the signal from the car is easier. You know exactly where the car is, your within physical contact wit hti. You are trying to steal it after all. Finding and boosting the signal from the fob is harder, but if they've already got that part figured out boosting the signal from the car is only nominally more effort.
" But this action seems counter to that, and feels counter to their core beliefs. Sure, they market themselves as a SE that doesn't track you, but the demographic that uses them isn't going to be pleased by this."
Meh. not really.
bangs are basically a type of hosted 'form bookmark'; where you can select an online form, complete it, and submit it all from the address bar.
!g xyz
is basically, go to the page booked mark named !g, put xyz in the search field, and then submit the form.
I don't think anyone *really* expects ddg to provide and maintain such booksmarks to pirate sites.
"If the individual parts don't have any environmental impact, neither does the whole."
One hunter kills all the deer, and you have no herd next year, or ever.
One hunter kills one deer, and you have no lasting impact. the herd will continue just fine.
Gather up enough hunters, and let them each kill one deer, instead of having no lasting effect by summing up all those 'no effects' you end up with the catastrophic effect where you have no herd next year (or ever).
"This is basic logic."
Even in basic logic this is a phenomena, just look at numerical stability analysis. Where catastrophic errors can accumulate in otherwise innocuous operations if you aren't careful. If you are just dividing a couple numbers the instability isn't relevant, but if you are doing millions of divisions in a connected system you might want to take a closer look to make sure you are not accumulating error effects that will come to dominate the results.
Or maybe... There are 5 places within 30 miles from my location and all of them are fronts for money laundering.
"This is legal because they are not a monopoly."
Likewise, Apple is not a monopoly either, with 43.5% of US smartphone owners running some form of iOS.
a) Monopoly does not require a sole vendor; you can have monopoly power and abuse it without being the only game in town. (See Microsoft's antitrust suit) 43% is huge; especially when the other smartphone OS is basically controlled by another single vendor. So we have a duopoly at best.
b) No one said they have have monopoly on smartphones. They have a monopoly on iphone apps.
Monopolies aren't inherently illegal. But they are subject to review and regulation in the public interest. In a case like this one element that strengthens the case against apple is that the consumer is tied to apple with an expensive phone. For a consumer to change what apps they buy they have to abandon a *separate* expensive product in the phone itself.
If I get pissed at chevron, i can just start buying gas somewhere else. I don't have to get a whole different car. I can get replacement parts from 3rd parties, I can get service from 3rd parties, i can install a stereo made by a 3rd party. etc etc. I can exercise my freedom to buy goods and services from whoever i want, without having to get a new car first.
Likewise, if get pissed at google play, i can get apps somewhere else. And in fact I do generally get my android apps from f-droid, and most of my games are from the humblebundle store for android. If I get pissed at steam there are some games i won't be able to buy, but there are plenty of other stores willing to provide me with PC software. I don't have to buy a new computer.
See the difference?
Now you can argue (rightfully) that consumers (should) know the deal with apple going in so caveat emptor; and that's a fair argument. But that doesn't automatically make it legal beyond reproach; the court should hear it.
You can also argue (rightfully) that its similar too or even exactly the same thing console makers do; and that's a good argument too. I do think there is a qualitative difference between a toy and an almost essential tool though; such that consumers don't necessarily need the same protection from Nintendo with respect to the availability of DS software as they do for their smartphones. Again that's a determination for the court.
Personally, I think Apple's store monopoly should be broken for the good of the market as a whole. There is a LOT of stuff that should be available that isn't or that is more of pain than it should be because of Apple's store monopoly. It's *the* primary reason I don't use an Apple phone myself.