I thought the whole point of signing a petition was to publicly announce your support for the petition.
That is certainly the point of a generic petition. I don't think that you can automatically assume that it is the point of a petition for a ballot measure or referendum. The petitions process in those instances is primarily used in order to screen measures and ensure that there is a significant question of public concern -- i.e., to prevent a ballot from including 1,000 questions, many of which were sponsored by the Crank Brigade. Should the signatures on those petitions be public? Should the votes for a petition-initiated ballot measure be public? Why the former but not the latter?
I mean, if you don't feel strongly enough to write your name publicly, why not just write Mickey Mouse? And hell, if there is going to be no public scrutiny of who is brave enough to actually back the petition, what's to keep the petitioner from just writing Mickey Mouse 120,000 times.
Petitions for ballot issues are checked against lists of registered voters. Amongst the many reasons why signatures are regularly rejected at that they don't match up with registered voter (name, signature, residence -- the detailed requirements vary). That is why a petition effort needs submit about 2x-3x the threshold number of signatures to stand a reasonable chance of making it on to a ballot. Public scrutiny is not the be-all and end-all of ensuring veracity. Your tax records and any tax appeals are not subject to public scruntiny, but rather scrutiny by public officials. The case was not arguing against the latter.
Likelihood of consumer confusion as to sponsorship is as good as likelihood of consumer confusion as to source. Then there's the trademark dilution and tarnishment issues. It'd be hard to argue that "the other white meat" is not a famous mark.
One of the better discussions of trademark parody is found in Mutual of Omaha Insurance Co. v. Novak, 836 F. 2d 397 (8th Cir. 1987). Although the fact that the parodist is not in the market is significant, ThinkGeek really does sell a broad range of merchandise. The twist that it is offering the Canned Unicorn Meat for sale (even if never completing a sale) is one that courts who are sympathetic to the 8th Circuit might not find amusing.
Social Security's biggest problem is that it's money constantly gets raided.
Not that I fundamentally disagree, but people can construe "raided" in a variety of ways, many of which are subject to political philosophy.
In the sense that the funds have been spent on things that have little likelihood of breaking even, much less generating greater economic well being, I don't disagree.
In the sense that the funds have been spent on things that indirectly preserve or enhance economic well being, e.g., a well planned highway route, that's a political discussion. The fantasy that every project will generate tax revenue is trotted out far too often to justify dubious ideas, but if you can spend $X to encourage $Y of economic activity that you can tax at some fractional rate Z, and ZY>X (time value of money blah blah blah), then the government has made money by "raiding" the Social Security fund. It's the "It's A Wonderful Life" banker speech writ large. Should the government build/maintain highways? Your opinion probably lies somewhere between those of Ayn Rand, Ike Eisenhower, and the stereotypical self-interested automotive industry CEO.
Unless you advocate for a pure wealth-transfer based system (current benefits paid by current taxes) or no Social Security whatsoever, that money has to go somewhere to even maintain its value versus inflation. "Raiding" has both economic (loss of value) and political (the government has no business spending it on this) connotations, and it's frequently not clear which is the source of a complaint.
If you are cashing checks all the time, for 100s of people, and a couple end up dodgy, then they have no case. If all the checks you cash for other people are dodgy, then you are doing something wrong.
Can you not see that?
That's a "known" or "should have known" (willful blindness/subjective recklessness) argument -- page 227 of the linked material. You've admitted my original point -- if accessory was a "strict liability" offense, even with only a couple that end up dodgy, they would have a case.
Money laundering, even if it is unknown to the person doing the laundering, is an accessory to a crime. You are helping them "clean" the money they have already stolen.
Unless you intended to make a very subtle distinction between a lack of knowledge of money laundering specifically versus a general lack of knowledge of a criminal act, I vehemently disagree. There is no such thing as a "strict liability" accessory crime in the United States.
Accessory statutes descending from English legal tradition, such as those in the U.S., require at least some form of knowledge of a criminal act (just not necessarily the criminal act committed by the principal). Do you know why? Because if being an accessory to say, money laundering, was a strict liability offense, then in the following:
A. Money launderer obtains proceeds of criminal endeavor B. Money launderer buys plasma TV at Best Buy C. Money launderer sells plasma TV on eBay to an arms-length buyer at market price.
all of Best Buy, eBay, and buyer are accessories to a felony. Full stop. This is patently ridiculous -- nobody could buy anything from an ordinary third party, or arguably broker a third party sale, for fear of becoming an accessory to a criminal act. Anything not purchased from the OEM would be suspect to varying degrees, and if your due diligence was both reasonable and wrong then you'd still an accessory.
The distinction the FBI is drawing is between those few who cannot be charged because they just didn't suspect ("are simply not the sharpest crayons in the box and really did get bamboozled"), and those who can be charged because they had some form of knowledge and intent (as evidenced by things like separating their own funds from the funds they were handling). Mere sympathy does not excuse those in the first group from criminal liability -- the lack of of a sufficient mens rea excludes them from criminal liability.
Nonsense. For one thing, you can shorten the term of new copyrights without affecting existing copyrights.
True. Politically difficult, but true.
For another thing, if congress can extend the term of existing copyrights as they did for Disney's latest copyright grab, I think it's only fair that they be allowed to shorten them as well.
The Supreme Court will not -- and those are the nine individuals whos thoughts count. That would be a classic taking of a vested property interest. If you live in the Western U.S., then it is Congress that granted the original title to the land that you're residing on. If Congress can grant that title, then it's only fair that they be allowed shorten the term of that title by law, correct? Despite the rhetoric on Slashdot, intellectual property is "property" in the eyes of the law. "Nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation" will apply in exactly the same way.
But at that point, Microsoft was already offering the closed, single-vendor Xbox system. My post is perfectly relevant as a rebuttal to the idea that Microsoft somehow cares about being a multi-vendor company.
I did not state that Microsoft cared. I stated PlayForSure was a multi-vendor music system, and your argument does not change that fact. Nor the fact that Apple was even more rapacious than Microsoft with respect to its music store and hardware.
It appears that you're only interested in addressing what you think I've written, rather than what I've actually posted, as a means of scoring points (against me? Microsoft?) I don't see the point in providing further fuel for phantom arguments concerning fictitious positions. Goodnight.
"The point of distinction was that you didn't need to buy a Microsoft-marketed player [wikipedia.org] since Microsoft licensed its DRM to third party manufacturers."
You need to reread what you suppose you are refuting. The tense of the highlighted verbs should reveal why your earlier post was irrelevant. I've already explained why I don't believe that Apple deserves primary credit for DRM-free music elsewhere.
Yes, which is part of how they killed DRM in the music industry...
Do I really need to explain? Aren't we all aware of the history of these things?
Yes.
Ok, apparently we don't all know the history of these things. Amazon didn't kill DRM. Apple successfully persuaded EMI to drop DRM, and Jobs published an open letter asking them to drop DRM. The record labels were so frightened of the power that Apple was amassing that they allowed Amazon to sell music without DRM while still refusing to allow Apple to sell DRM-free files. It was a strategy by the record labels to hurt Apple's market share.
The part that mystifies me is that you want to credit Apple with accomplishing something that it did not do. Yes, Steve Jobs published his open letter. Then he promptly made a deal with EMI to sell tracks at $1.30 without DRM versus $0.99 with DRM. Then Amazon announced tracks at $0.89-$0.99 without DRM. Whether it was a conspiracy against Apple or not does not matter -- Amazon achieved DRM-free music at the standard $0.99 price point. Five months later in October 2007, Apple finally achieved the same thing. Did Apple fail to negotiate well in the first place? After all, it didn't introduce variable pricing until April 2009, but it got $0.99 DRM-free music in October 2007. If there was a conspiracy to weaken Apple, that shouldn't have happened. Apple should have been stuck with charging a premium until far later.
Apple settled for lack of DRM as a premium feature, and perhaps more to the point refused to license a DRM system that was already cracked because "it might be cracked." Specifically:
"Some have argued that once a consumer purchases a body of music from one of the proprietary music stores, they are forever locked into only using music players from that one company. Or, if they buy a specific player, they are locked into buying music only from that company's music store. Is this true? [DRJlaw - Yes, especially when the purchased music is worth more than a new player] *** The second alternative is for Apple to license its FairPlay DRM technology to current and future competitors with the goal of achieving interoperability between different company's players and music stores. On the surface, this seems like a good idea since it might offer customers increased choice now and in the future. And Apple might benefit by charging a small licensing fee for its FairPlay DRM. However, when we look a bit deeper, problems begin to emerge. The most serious problem is that licensing a DRM involves disclosing some of its secrets to many people in many companies, and history tells us that inevitably these secrets will leak." *** Apple has concluded that if it licenses FairPlay to others, it can no longer guarantee to protect the music it licenses from the big four music companies.
-Steve Jobs, "Thoughts on Music," February 6, 2007
Why? In my opinion, because iTunes $0.99 purchases were essentially tied to Apple hardware and only Apple hardware (unless you were a dirty stinking pirate), and DRM-free music was not. Once Amazon upset that apple cart, pun intended, Apple amazingly managed to renegotiate its price with EMI -- who you allege favored Amazon -- and who could sell music through Amazon to be played on Apple players (thus with no possibility of a lockout by Apple).
Whatever Apple's aspirations, Amazon broke the final wall by achieving portable, DRM-free music at the standard price point. Apple refused portability on questionable grounds, and compromised its position on DRM in a way that favored its hardware over any competing hardware. I see no reason to give Apple sole or even primary credit for freeing the general music marketplace from DRM.
Subscription services and game consoles are irrelevant to my original statements: Apple did not dispose of music DRM out of any munificence. It charged a premium for DRM-free music (which "coincidentally" would not be tied to its iPods) until Amazon disposed of DRM by offering DRM-free MP3s at the standard price point. Apple was all about Apple -- even moreso than Microsoft with regard to its hardware.
Subsequent events in other areas do not detract from that point. Subscription services inherently use DRM, and the Zune marketplace will happily sell you MP3s at the standard price point. If Apple ever offers a subscription service that runs on something non-Apple, you can begin to bring Zune into the discussion. You've completely left the city limits by the time you get to game consoles.
You were only locked into using Windows in the same sense that you were locked into using iTunes. The point of distinction was that you didn't need to buy a Microsoft-marketed player since Microsoft licensed its DRM to third party manufacturers. Apple did not and still does not -- attempt to play an unmodified iTunes Store video on anything that you can put in your pocket and it either won't work or will have the Apple logo on it.
Are you a troll? AAC is not locked to to specific devices and if you think they are you are fooling yourself. Apple also provides a scheme to upgrade to the non-DRM encumbered versions and most devices now support AAC.
You must be responding to a different post, since mine does not mention AAC and specifically refers to Fairplay DRM. If not, thank you for the completely unwarranted accusation and criticism. iTunes Plus is specifically referenced in the linked section of the Wikipedia article. Apple introduced iTunes Plus w/ EMI at a 30% premium, Amazon undercut them, and only then did Apple retrench and sell DRM-free music at the then-standard price point. Apple's "generosity" did not exist before October 2007 with respect to particular publishers, and April 2009 as a general policy. Shall we discuss what happened between April 2007 and October 2007 in detail, assuming that you prefer not to think about the everything-is-Fairplay-bearing history that I was discussing in my original post?
The only reason that Amazon was able to score a non-DRM deal with the music industry is because the music industry is scared shitless about how big the iTunes music store was getting. Do you really think no other internet music store wouldn't have done that if they could have negotiated it out of them?
You're either (1) arguing that the music industry pushed for DRM-free music, (2) conceding that Apple was a lousy negotiator, or (3) ignoring Apple's continued leverage of the "all bad" by continuing to tie iTunes $0.99 tracks to Apple-marketed devices. I see no evidence for (1). I see how Amazon's sales of DRM-free MP3 music forced Apple, 5 months later, to drop the price of iTunes Plus to the same as that of Fairply DRM-bearing iTunes music, which strangely supports (2) despite Apple's reputation to the contrary. I also see Apple's historic and continued use of 'exclusive' content (Mac OS/OS X, Fairplay-bearing video, iPhone Apps given the new developer restrictions and Flash kerfluffle) as fully supporting (3). Microsoft licenses its DRM. Apple does not. Full stop.
The truth tends to lay somewhere more in the middle.
I think not. The truth is that Apple will tie, exclusively-link, and otherwise leverage any media it can in order to drive Apple-marketed hardware sales. If you did not want to listen to your iTunes library on your PC, you bought an Apple device. If you do not want to watch iTunes video on your PC, you still must buy an Apple device. That was the point of my original post and I stand by it.
Just keep this in mind: Apple used Fairplay DRM to kill the use of WMA and DRM in the music industry. Apple's insanity isn't all bad.
Apple also refused to license Fairplay DRM, which ment that the music that you puchased from iTunes could only realistically be played on Apple devices (Quicktime/Itunes on a PC is not a significant exception). WMA DRM locked you into certain devices, but not only Microsoft-marketed devices. That insanity is "all bad."
BTW: Fairplay did not kill DRM in the music industry. Amazon killed DRM in the music industry.
Nonsense. Law is simply morality that's been codified.
That's a false equivalence, which if accepted creates a tautology.
The law in some jurisdictions provides for a death penalty. The fact that a death penalty is authorized by law does not automatically make it moral -- it is moral to some, and immoral to others. This is but one example.
The law may reflect particular versions of morality, but it is even more frequently amoral. Building codes specify how your house must be built. There is nothing inherently immoral in building a non-compliant structure or owning a non-compliant structure (excluding fraudulent sales to others), yet the law does not allow it.
The law of copyright is 300 years old. The morality of copying is subject to debate. Your general proposition appears to be that it is immoral to copy a work. If so, one must question why it is immoral to copy a work the day before a copyright expires yet moral to copy the same work the day after the copyright expires. Note: the morality of complying with copyright is not in question -- you've argued that law is codified morality, and not than that it is immoral to flout the law.
I know of several dozen websites that deal in financial transactions and related, and which will all check for software versioning and require downloading active x controls onto the user's machine for at least some functions.
they are major financial partners in stock trading, banking, sale of treasury securities, and such, they pay a small fortune every year for VPN security and encryption, and everyone else in the financial industry has to occasionally deal with them.
it's still vendor lock-in with bells on. Your comment about 10 year old OS versions isn't just a red herring, it shows a complete lack of understanding.
Yes... on your part. The vendor is not Microsoft. The vendor is your financial partners. Microsoft is not imposing version checking. Microsoft has long provided alternative interfaces which negate the need for ActiveX controls. It is your financial partners who are refusing to support later browsers and alternate browsers. It is your financial partners, and not Microsoft, who control the gateways to the services that you want.
So we will probably upgrade the machines that still run Windows in every office, yet again.
Thank your financial partners, not Microsoft. If those financial partners only provided service through the old CompuServe interface, you wouldn't be blaming CompuServe for failing to completely overhaul their service to be web and HTML based. If those financial partners only provided service by telegraph, you wouldn't be blaming Western Union for failing to upgrade your telegraphy machines on demand.
The machines that still run Windows in every office should still work. The machines are even security supported for four more years (assuming that they're on XP). If you're bitter that you can't replace them with the new shiny exactly in the manner that you want, then suck it up and blame your financial partners, not Microsoft. You're obviously no longer Microsoft's customer, so why should they solve your problem in a way that doesn't generate revenue rather than telling you to pound sand?
Yes and NO - if you are hired on as a "contract employee" (aka a 3 month term kinda job) you fall under either part1, or if working as a team, the collective work part of part 2
A contract employee is not an independent contractor. A contract employee is an employee. The most notable, but not dispositive, factor is who is the one handling payroll taxes. From a legal perspective, it's a balancing test between independent (your own tools, methods, and schedule, just deliver X by Y) and controlled (using the other side's tools according to their policies and on their hours).
A collective work is not just any project that you're thrown into. It is "a work, such as a periodical issue, anthology, or encyclopedia, in which a number of contributions, constituting separate and independent works in themselves, are assembled into a collective whole." I haven't needed to research how courts treat this for a computer programmer client, but the seperate and independent test is going to be hard to meet in the more nuts and bolts aspects of the profession.
It depends upon your local laws and your contract. In the U.S., the default laws tend to vary by state. The last time I checked with my attorney, he told me that here in NY, all work is considered to be work-for-hire unless specified in writing. This means that the source code is automatically the property of the client, unless I get a contract stating otherwise. Which I do sometimes, but not that often.
Your attorney is wrong. The U.S. Congress defined what is and what is not a work for hire in 17 USC 101. To wit:
A "work made for hire" is --
(1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or
(2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire. For the purpose of the foregoing sentence, a "supplementary work" is a work prepared for publication as a secondary adjunct to a work by another author for the purpose of introducing, concluding, illustrating, explaining, revising, commenting upon, or assisting in the use of the other work, such as forewords, afterwords, pictorial illustrations, maps, charts, tables, editorial notes, musical arrangements, answer material for tests, bibliographies, appendixes, and indexes, and an "instructional text" is a literary, pictorial, or graphic work prepared for publication and with the purpose of use in systematic instructional activities.
New York cannot redefine the meaning of a work for hire. New York can only interpret the meaning of an employee and the scope of employment. If you are an independent contractor, you own the copyright in the absence of a written agreement to transfer the copyright. Period -- 17 USC 201 and 204.
Not to mention, does that comparison mean anything to anyone else? I've never stood in front of the LHC personally and don't know anyone who has. I can -assume- it wouldn't be healthy, but... well, it doesn't really ring home with me.
Reading this reminded me that I had recently read about the nasty effects of the LHC on any target unlucky enough to get in its way. Apparently particle physicists are just waiting for something to stumble in front of this unreasonably large, essentially unaimable sci-fi-esque weapon. To wit:
The collider's own prodigious energies are in some way its worst enemy. At full strength, the energy stored in its superconducting magnets would equal that of an Airbus A380 flying at 450 miles an hour, and the proton beam itself could pierce 100 feet of solid copper.
How hard would it have been to make a more visceral if less accurate car metaphor. "99.999998 percent of the speed of light through hydrogen atoms would be like trying to drive your car at 90 miles an hour into a concrete wall."...although I haven't done that either recently...
Because the car is not going to punch a small, hot hole into the concrete wall, and the 99 walls behind it. I suspect the point that was being made, and was edited out, is that you're not going to be able to shield a living person from things that will impact the vessel with those sorts of energies.
The US is a federation, meaning power is granted by the federal government to the lower states.
The entire U.S. legal establishment disagrees with you. The United States of America began as a confederation of sovereign states which adopted a Constitution that provided only specified powers to the federal government. The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution is often given short shrift as a truism, but accurately sets out the relationship: if a power hasn't been granted to the federal government by the states, and hasn't been prohibited within the U.S. Constitution, then that power is available to each state. Various state Constitutions may allow or prohibit exercise of the powers that are available to each state, but the only powers being granted by the federal government to the states are powers that were expressly surrendered to the federal government by those original states (ignoring, for the moment, amendments made after the Bill of Rights).
So the government of the US determines whether a state can set a legal drinking age
Wrong. The federal government decides that it will withhold highway funds under its spending power in order to coerce a particular drinking age. The power to set a drinking age is within the "health and welfare" powers of state governments. Even if the federal government could wrangle a drinking age law under one of its express powers, under Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997), local law enforcement would not be obligated to enforce that law. The grey area between express powers provided to the federal government and "other powers" reserved for the states has led to conflict issues like medical marijuana in California, Colorado, and the like.
The European Union is coming to the Federalism party 200 years late. Once you've adopted the Treaty of Lisbon, you can have even more fun debating nationality and sovereignty with the grandparent. Could the British allow reproductive cloning of human beings if they so wished? Apparently not.
[I] so far have only deployed it as a 'consulting' project with two other small companies (who love it).
If you don't bring this to a patent attorney within a year of your first deployment (assuming that you haven't made major changes to what you think are the patentable aspects), your question may soon be moot.
"A person shall be entitled to a patent unless... the invention was... in public use or on sale in this country[] more than one year prior to the date of the application for patent in the United States." 35 USC 102(b)
I could have sworn that we were discussing a specific article concerning lobbying and public relations. I also could have sworn that I raised the Noerr-Pennington issue. Stay on topic, and specify the laws that apply. If you think the laws should be different, then be honest and say so, but don't suggest that there are actionable violations of the law here. As someone who has studied constitutional law, corporate governance, and antitrust law, I'm calling "bullshit."
Identify the applicable law, and for bonus points the cases upholding in it similar circumstances. Educate us all.
Not really. If the majority of your competitors get together and work against you by holding meetings discrediting you, it's probably the same as all the major players in a market getting together and pricing you out of business. If it isn't, it should be illegal.
I could reprise all of First Amendment doctrine for you, but I won't. It's not illegal, and it shouldn't be illegal. Speech that you object to must be countered with speech, not suppression of the speech that you object to.
The article doesn't include any explanation of how the photoshopped image comments on or criticizes the original (although another commenter above does provide a pretty good potential justification), indeed, as you say, the creator doesn't mention that as a purpose at all.
Technically that's correct. There is no explicit explanation or discussion of Alkhateeb's purpose. But on the other hand, the article states:
On Alkhateeb's page, a manipulated image condemning fellow Chicagoan and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel (captioned "epic fail") was mixed in with parodies of the "Guitar Hero" game franchises -- dubbed Quran Hero -- and of Napoleon riding a motorcycle (pictured after the jump).
and
He initially had concerns about...... connecting his name with anything critical of the president -- especially living in Chicago, where people are "very, very liberal," he said.
The article does state that "Alkhateeb claims he was making no political statement with the artwork," but that seems to contradict the balance of the material. If Alkhateeb wants to let the issue die, then let him. But you should not criticize the submitter for drawing reasonable inferences from what is reported in the article and the work that Alkhateeb actually produced.
It's not "unquestionable" at all. First of all, the fact that it's a parody of the President does not make it fair use - to be fair use as a parody, something has to be a parody of the copyright work, not the subject of that work.... It seems to me that the image in question is using the Time photograph to produce an unrelated piece of work commenting on the President. That's no more fair use than, say, sampling a record to produce a new track is fair use.
It's not unquestionable, but it's very close to being so. First, 17 USC 107 permits uses for "criticism, comment, news reporting..." in addition to parody and satire. Neither the article nor Alkhateeb appear to have claimed that the image is a parody -- that's a fiction originating in the summary. The EFF reportedly considers it to be political commentary. Alkhateeb might consider it to be criticism. Almost any way that you slice it, this sort of speech qualifies for fair use. Second, you appear to be focusing on the wrong image -- Alkhateeb did not create the ObamaJoker "SOCIALISM" poster, but the modified Time cover included in the article -- and the modified Time cover could very well be construed as parody. The courts have stated that "The original work need not be the sole subject of the parody; the parody 'may loosely target an original' as long as the parody 'reasonably could be perceived as commenting on the original or criticizing it, to some degree.'" (Mattell v. Walking Mountain Productions, 9th Circuit 2003). Third, you've ignored the four factors, including (1) the purpose and character of the use (political and noncommercial); (2) the nature of the copyrighted work (already published with little residual value -- a September 2008 weekly magazine cover does not have much commercial value months or years later); (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the work as a whole (it would be interesting to see whether the photograph was registered individually or under a serial registration for the magazine); and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work (in view of the substantial transformation of the cover, I think you can readily argue that there's virtually none).
Flickr, Time, and DC Comics can do what they wish so long as they are willing to take the PR hit. But your position on fair use is particularly flawed. As has been noted by other posters, non-commercial political speech is essentially the most protected form of speech that there is. Alkhateeb could easily file a DMCA counternotice that puts the ball right back into Flickr's court, and the chances of Time or DC Comics succeeding in a copyright infringement claim are extremely low.
Slashdot Mirror
That is certainly the point of a generic petition. I don't think that you can automatically assume that it is the point of a petition for a ballot measure or referendum. The petitions process in those instances is primarily used in order to screen measures and ensure that there is a significant question of public concern -- i.e., to prevent a ballot from including 1,000 questions, many of which were sponsored by the Crank Brigade. Should the signatures on those petitions be public? Should the votes for a petition-initiated ballot measure be public? Why the former but not the latter?
Petitions for ballot issues are checked against lists of registered voters. Amongst the many reasons why signatures are regularly rejected at that they don't match up with registered voter (name, signature, residence -- the detailed requirements vary). That is why a petition effort needs submit about 2x-3x the threshold number of signatures to stand a reasonable chance of making it on to a ballot. Public scrutiny is not the be-all and end-all of ensuring veracity. Your tax records and any tax appeals are not subject to public scruntiny, but rather scrutiny by public officials. The case was not arguing against the latter.
Likelihood of consumer confusion as to sponsorship is as good as likelihood of consumer confusion as to source. Then there's the trademark dilution and tarnishment issues. It'd be hard to argue that "the other white meat" is not a famous mark.
One of the better discussions of trademark parody is found in Mutual of Omaha Insurance Co. v. Novak, 836 F. 2d 397 (8th Cir. 1987). Although the fact that the parodist is not in the market is significant, ThinkGeek really does sell a broad range of merchandise. The twist that it is offering the Canned Unicorn Meat for sale (even if never completing a sale) is one that courts who are sympathetic to the 8th Circuit might not find amusing.
Not that I fundamentally disagree, but people can construe "raided" in a variety of ways, many of which are subject to political philosophy.
In the sense that the funds have been spent on things that have little likelihood of breaking even, much less generating greater economic well being, I don't disagree.
In the sense that the funds have been spent on things that indirectly preserve or enhance economic well being, e.g., a well planned highway route, that's a political discussion. The fantasy that every project will generate tax revenue is trotted out far too often to justify dubious ideas, but if you can spend $X to encourage $Y of economic activity that you can tax at some fractional rate Z, and ZY>X (time value of money blah blah blah), then the government has made money by "raiding" the Social Security fund. It's the "It's A Wonderful Life" banker speech writ large. Should the government build/maintain highways? Your opinion probably lies somewhere between those of Ayn Rand, Ike Eisenhower, and the stereotypical self-interested automotive industry CEO.
Unless you advocate for a pure wealth-transfer based system (current benefits paid by current taxes) or no Social Security whatsoever, that money has to go somewhere to even maintain its value versus inflation. "Raiding" has both economic (loss of value) and political (the government has no business spending it on this) connotations, and it's frequently not clear which is the source of a complaint.
That's a "known" or "should have known" (willful blindness/subjective recklessness) argument -- page 227 of the linked material. You've admitted my original point -- if accessory was a "strict liability" offense, even with only a couple that end up dodgy, they would have a case.
Unless you intended to make a very subtle distinction between a lack of knowledge of money laundering specifically versus a general lack of knowledge of a criminal act, I vehemently disagree. There is no such thing as a "strict liability" accessory crime in the United States.
Accessory statutes descending from English legal tradition, such as those in the U.S., require at least some form of knowledge of a criminal act (just not necessarily the criminal act committed by the principal). Do you know why? Because if being an accessory to say, money laundering, was a strict liability offense, then in the following:
A. Money launderer obtains proceeds of criminal endeavor
B. Money launderer buys plasma TV at Best Buy
C. Money launderer sells plasma TV on eBay to an arms-length buyer at market price.
all of Best Buy, eBay, and buyer are accessories to a felony. Full stop. This is patently ridiculous -- nobody could buy anything from an ordinary third party, or arguably broker a third party sale, for fear of becoming an accessory to a criminal act. Anything not purchased from the OEM would be suspect to varying degrees, and if your due diligence was both reasonable and wrong then you'd still an accessory.
The distinction the FBI is drawing is between those few who cannot be charged because they just didn't suspect ("are simply not the sharpest crayons in the box and really did get bamboozled"), and those who can be charged because they had some form of knowledge and intent (as evidenced by things like separating their own funds from the funds they were handling). Mere sympathy does not excuse those in the first group from criminal liability -- the lack of of a sufficient mens rea excludes them from criminal liability.
True. Politically difficult, but true.
The Supreme Court will not -- and those are the nine individuals whos thoughts count. That would be a classic taking of a vested property interest. If you live in the Western U.S., then it is Congress that granted the original title to the land that you're residing on. If Congress can grant that title, then it's only fair that they be allowed shorten the term of that title by law, correct? Despite the rhetoric on Slashdot, intellectual property is "property" in the eyes of the law. "Nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation" will apply in exactly the same way.
I did not state that Microsoft cared. I stated PlayForSure was a multi-vendor music system, and your argument does not change that fact. Nor the fact that Apple was even more rapacious than Microsoft with respect to its music store and hardware.
It appears that you're only interested in addressing what you think I've written, rather than what I've actually posted, as a means of scoring points (against me? Microsoft?) I don't see the point in providing further fuel for phantom arguments concerning fictitious positions. Goodnight.
You need to reread what you suppose you are refuting. The tense of the highlighted verbs should reveal why your earlier post was irrelevant. I've already explained why I don't believe that Apple deserves primary credit for DRM-free music elsewhere.
Yes.
The part that mystifies me is that you want to credit Apple with accomplishing something that it did not do. Yes, Steve Jobs published his open letter. Then he promptly made a deal with EMI to sell tracks at $1.30 without DRM versus $0.99 with DRM. Then Amazon announced tracks at $0.89-$0.99 without DRM. Whether it was a conspiracy against Apple or not does not matter -- Amazon achieved DRM-free music at the standard $0.99 price point. Five months later in October 2007, Apple finally achieved the same thing. Did Apple fail to negotiate well in the first place? After all, it didn't introduce variable pricing until April 2009, but it got $0.99 DRM-free music in October 2007. If there was a conspiracy to weaken Apple, that shouldn't have happened. Apple should have been stuck with charging a premium until far later.
Apple settled for lack of DRM as a premium feature, and perhaps more to the point refused to license a DRM system that was already cracked because "it might be cracked." Specifically:
Why? In my opinion, because iTunes $0.99 purchases were essentially tied to Apple hardware and only Apple hardware (unless you were a dirty stinking pirate), and DRM-free music was not. Once Amazon upset that apple cart, pun intended, Apple amazingly managed to renegotiate its price with EMI -- who you allege favored Amazon -- and who could sell music through Amazon to be played on Apple players (thus with no possibility of a lockout by Apple).
Whatever Apple's aspirations, Amazon broke the final wall by achieving portable, DRM-free music at the standard price point. Apple refused portability on questionable grounds, and compromised its position on DRM in a way that favored its hardware over any competing hardware. I see no reason to give Apple sole or even primary credit for freeing the general music marketplace from DRM.
Subscription services and game consoles are irrelevant to my original statements: Apple did not dispose of music DRM out of any munificence. It charged a premium for DRM-free music (which "coincidentally" would not be tied to its iPods) until Amazon disposed of DRM by offering DRM-free MP3s at the standard price point. Apple was all about Apple -- even moreso than Microsoft with regard to its hardware. Subsequent events in other areas do not detract from that point. Subscription services inherently use DRM, and the Zune marketplace will happily sell you MP3s at the standard price point. If Apple ever offers a subscription service that runs on something non-Apple, you can begin to bring Zune into the discussion. You've completely left the city limits by the time you get to game consoles.
You were only locked into using Windows in the same sense that you were locked into using iTunes. The point of distinction was that you didn't need to buy a Microsoft-marketed player since Microsoft licensed its DRM to third party manufacturers. Apple did not and still does not -- attempt to play an unmodified iTunes Store video on anything that you can put in your pocket and it either won't work or will have the Apple logo on it.
You must be responding to a different post, since mine does not mention AAC and specifically refers to Fairplay DRM. If not, thank you for the completely unwarranted accusation and criticism. iTunes Plus is specifically referenced in the linked section of the Wikipedia article. Apple introduced iTunes Plus w/ EMI at a 30% premium, Amazon undercut them, and only then did Apple retrench and sell DRM-free music at the then-standard price point. Apple's "generosity" did not exist before October 2007 with respect to particular publishers, and April 2009 as a general policy. Shall we discuss what happened between April 2007 and October 2007 in detail, assuming that you prefer not to think about the everything-is-Fairplay-bearing history that I was discussing in my original post?
You're either (1) arguing that the music industry pushed for DRM-free music, (2) conceding that Apple was a lousy negotiator, or (3) ignoring Apple's continued leverage of the "all bad" by continuing to tie iTunes $0.99 tracks to Apple-marketed devices. I see no evidence for (1). I see how Amazon's sales of DRM-free MP3 music forced Apple, 5 months later, to drop the price of iTunes Plus to the same as that of Fairply DRM-bearing iTunes music, which strangely supports (2) despite Apple's reputation to the contrary. I also see Apple's historic and continued use of 'exclusive' content (Mac OS/OS X, Fairplay-bearing video, iPhone Apps given the new developer restrictions and Flash kerfluffle) as fully supporting (3). Microsoft licenses its DRM. Apple does not. Full stop.
I think not. The truth is that Apple will tie, exclusively-link, and otherwise leverage any media it can in order to drive Apple-marketed hardware sales. If you did not want to listen to your iTunes library on your PC, you bought an Apple device. If you do not want to watch iTunes video on your PC, you still must buy an Apple device. That was the point of my original post and I stand by it.
Apple also refused to license Fairplay DRM, which ment that the music that you puchased from iTunes could only realistically be played on Apple devices (Quicktime/Itunes on a PC is not a significant exception). WMA DRM locked you into certain devices, but not only Microsoft-marketed devices. That insanity is "all bad."
BTW: Fairplay did not kill DRM in the music industry. Amazon killed DRM in the music industry.
That's a false equivalence, which if accepted creates a tautology.
The law in some jurisdictions provides for a death penalty. The fact that a death penalty is authorized by law does not automatically make it moral -- it is moral to some, and immoral to others. This is but one example.
The law may reflect particular versions of morality, but it is even more frequently amoral. Building codes specify how your house must be built. There is nothing inherently immoral in building a non-compliant structure or owning a non-compliant structure (excluding fraudulent sales to others), yet the law does not allow it.
The law of copyright is 300 years old. The morality of copying is subject to debate. Your general proposition appears to be that it is immoral to copy a work. If so, one must question why it is immoral to copy a work the day before a copyright expires yet moral to copy the same work the day after the copyright expires. Note: the morality of complying with copyright is not in question -- you've argued that law is codified morality, and not than that it is immoral to flout the law.
Yes... on your part. The vendor is not Microsoft. The vendor is your financial partners. Microsoft is not imposing version checking. Microsoft has long provided alternative interfaces which negate the need for ActiveX controls. It is your financial partners who are refusing to support later browsers and alternate browsers. It is your financial partners, and not Microsoft, who control the gateways to the services that you want.
Thank your financial partners, not Microsoft. If those financial partners only provided service through the old CompuServe interface, you wouldn't be blaming CompuServe for failing to completely overhaul their service to be web and HTML based. If those financial partners only provided service by telegraph, you wouldn't be blaming Western Union for failing to upgrade your telegraphy machines on demand.
The machines that still run Windows in every office should still work. The machines are even security supported for four more years (assuming that they're on XP). If you're bitter that you can't replace them with the new shiny exactly in the manner that you want, then suck it up and blame your financial partners, not Microsoft. You're obviously no longer Microsoft's customer, so why should they solve your problem in a way that doesn't generate revenue rather than telling you to pound sand?
A contract employee is not an independent contractor. A contract employee is an employee. The most notable, but not dispositive, factor is who is the one handling payroll taxes. From a legal perspective, it's a balancing test between independent (your own tools, methods, and schedule, just deliver X by Y) and controlled (using the other side's tools according to their policies and on their hours).
A collective work is not just any project that you're thrown into. It is "a work, such as a periodical issue, anthology, or encyclopedia, in which a number of contributions, constituting separate and independent works in themselves, are assembled into a collective whole." I haven't needed to research how courts treat this for a computer programmer client, but the seperate and independent test is going to be hard to meet in the more nuts and bolts aspects of the profession.
Your attorney is wrong. The U.S. Congress defined what is and what is not a work for hire in 17 USC 101. To wit:
A "work made for hire" is --
(1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or
(2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire. For the purpose of the foregoing sentence, a "supplementary work" is a work prepared for publication as a secondary adjunct to a work by another author for the purpose of introducing, concluding, illustrating, explaining, revising, commenting upon, or assisting in the use of the other work, such as forewords, afterwords, pictorial illustrations, maps, charts, tables, editorial notes, musical arrangements, answer material for tests, bibliographies, appendixes, and indexes, and an "instructional text" is a literary, pictorial, or graphic work prepared for publication and with the purpose of use in systematic instructional activities.
New York cannot redefine the meaning of a work for hire. New York can only interpret the meaning of an employee and the scope of employment. If you are an independent contractor, you own the copyright in the absence of a written agreement to transfer the copyright. Period -- 17 USC 201 and 204.
Reading this reminded me that I had recently read about the nasty effects of the LHC on any target unlucky enough to get in its way. Apparently particle physicists are just waiting for something to stumble in front of this unreasonably large, essentially unaimable sci-fi-esque weapon. To wit:
Source
Because the car is not going to punch a small, hot hole into the concrete wall, and the 99 walls behind it. I suspect the point that was being made, and was edited out, is that you're not going to be able to shield a living person from things that will impact the vessel with those sorts of energies.
The entire U.S. legal establishment disagrees with you. The United States of America began as a confederation of sovereign states which adopted a Constitution that provided only specified powers to the federal government. The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution is often given short shrift as a truism, but accurately sets out the relationship: if a power hasn't been granted to the federal government by the states, and hasn't been prohibited within the U.S. Constitution, then that power is available to each state. Various state Constitutions may allow or prohibit exercise of the powers that are available to each state, but the only powers being granted by the federal government to the states are powers that were expressly surrendered to the federal government by those original states (ignoring, for the moment, amendments made after the Bill of Rights).
Wrong. The federal government decides that it will withhold highway funds under its spending power in order to coerce a particular drinking age. The power to set a drinking age is within the "health and welfare" powers of state governments. Even if the federal government could wrangle a drinking age law under one of its express powers, under Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997), local law enforcement would not be obligated to enforce that law. The grey area between express powers provided to the federal government and "other powers" reserved for the states has led to conflict issues like medical marijuana in California, Colorado, and the like.
The European Union is coming to the Federalism party 200 years late. Once you've adopted the Treaty of Lisbon, you can have even more fun debating nationality and sovereignty with the grandparent. Could the British allow reproductive cloning of human beings if they so wished? Apparently not.
If you don't bring this to a patent attorney within a year of your first deployment (assuming that you haven't made major changes to what you think are the patentable aspects), your question may soon be moot.
"A person shall be entitled to a patent unless... the invention was... in public use or on sale in this country[] more than one year prior to the date of the application for patent in the United States." 35 USC 102(b)
I could have sworn that we were discussing a specific article concerning lobbying and public relations. I also could have sworn that I raised the Noerr-Pennington issue. Stay on topic, and specify the laws that apply. If you think the laws should be different, then be honest and say so, but don't suggest that there are actionable violations of the law here. As someone who has studied constitutional law, corporate governance, and antitrust law, I'm calling "bullshit."
Identify the applicable law, and for bonus points the cases upholding in it similar circumstances. Educate us all.
I could reprise all of First Amendment doctrine for you, but I won't. It's not illegal, and it shouldn't be illegal. Speech that you object to must be countered with speech, not suppression of the speech that you object to.
Only if you ignore that pesky First Amendment in the Constitution.
Technically that's correct. There is no explicit explanation or discussion of Alkhateeb's purpose. But on the other hand, the article states:
and
The article does state that "Alkhateeb claims he was making no political statement with the artwork," but that seems to contradict the balance of the material. If Alkhateeb wants to let the issue die, then let him. But you should not criticize the submitter for drawing reasonable inferences from what is reported in the article and the work that Alkhateeb actually produced.
It's not unquestionable, but it's very close to being so. First, 17 USC 107 permits uses for "criticism, comment, news reporting..." in addition to parody and satire. Neither the article nor Alkhateeb appear to have claimed that the image is a parody -- that's a fiction originating in the summary. The EFF reportedly considers it to be political commentary. Alkhateeb might consider it to be criticism. Almost any way that you slice it, this sort of speech qualifies for fair use. Second, you appear to be focusing on the wrong image -- Alkhateeb did not create the ObamaJoker "SOCIALISM" poster, but the modified Time cover included in the article -- and the modified Time cover could very well be construed as parody. The courts have stated that "The original work need not be the sole subject of the parody; the parody 'may loosely target an original' as long as the parody 'reasonably could be perceived as commenting on the original or criticizing it, to some degree.'" (Mattell v. Walking Mountain Productions, 9th Circuit 2003). Third, you've ignored the four factors, including (1) the purpose and character of the use (political and noncommercial); (2) the nature of the copyrighted work (already published with little residual value -- a September 2008 weekly magazine cover does not have much commercial value months or years later); (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the work as a whole (it would be interesting to see whether the photograph was registered individually or under a serial registration for the magazine); and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work (in view of the substantial transformation of the cover, I think you can readily argue that there's virtually none).
Flickr, Time, and DC Comics can do what they wish so long as they are willing to take the PR hit. But your position on fair use is particularly flawed. As has been noted by other posters, non-commercial political speech is essentially the most protected form of speech that there is. Alkhateeb could easily file a DMCA counternotice that puts the ball right back into Flickr's court, and the chances of Time or DC Comics succeeding in a copyright infringement claim are extremely low.