As the deployment of computer agents that act on behalf of users grow, so do questions regarding the legitimacy and legal standing of computer based agreements. I note the use of the terms "agents" and "proxy" in the technical discipline and argue that a more explicit understanding of these terms is necessary to properly address the convergence of technical and legal issues related to electronic commerce. Unfortunately, much of the legal literature on the question of computer agency is preoccupied with concepts of intelligence, consideration, and intention within a computer program; this is because these concepts are found in law. However, these concepts are premature in a technical context -- regardless of hand-waiving about artificial intelligence. I provide a simple technical explanation of computer agents and proxies, as well as a brief etymology of those terms in the technical context. I conclude by pointing out some problems of making automated agreements on the Web in hopes that this small contribution will permit legal analysis to focus on pressing issues of the day.
2. When access to a particular URL is blocked through an implementation of PICS, error conditions or other user interface functions ought to specifically indicate that the URL is not accessible because of blocking by a content selection tool. Relevant information could include: a. the rating system whose value is out of range (if more than one is being used) and which variable and value led to the blocking of a URL. b. some indication of where the blocking occurred.(i.e. is it part of the browser and under local control, or is it a proxy and if so who owns and/or operates the proxy.)
Why is this so funny?! What the fuck is wrong with you guys that you condone and laugh at sexual violence? If it was your brother, or you, thrown in jail for a little hack, or even some protest, do you think that is just? Should these people die of AIDS? They do you know. And it's used by the government to force confessions and plea bargains. You represent yourselves as cretin fascists, but I hope that isn't true and that you are just only terribly ignorant.
Someone asked me what I meant by "amortize" in my thoughts on Balancing the Swinging
the Seesaw. Since I'm fond of metaphors, I dragged yet another one (home
mortgages) into play.
Amortize: "To write off an expenditure for (office equipment, for example)
by prorating over a certain period."
When I think about an application, there's a certain expenditure one must
make with respect to design. I can do it quick and cheap now and incur most
of the cost later when I'm confronted with issues of scalability, interop,
and extensibility. Or I can spend a time at the start by modeling and
designing for flexibility and extensibility, and consequently avoid compound
interest in the future. Think of purchasing an old fixer-upper home: you can
select from a couple of properties on the market. First, you want something
with the a sound footing and an inexpensive price. Also, you'll probably need
a mortgage. The smaller the down payment, the larger the total cost. So
ideally, you want your down payment to be as large a portion of the total
price as possible. But, your initial cash reserve is limited, so you commit
to your down payment and then you can at least move in and start fixing the
house and increasing its value. Same thing with applications! In the end you
want to move in and improve where most needed, but you also want something
with a sound architectural footing. That's a balancing act, though sometimes
there's design principles and technologies that lessen (win/win) immediate
and future costs. RDF has a great architectural footing those who
don't like it are doomed to reinvent it poorly but an
immediate/localized cost of comprehension. For example, in RSS 1.0 the order
semantic of RDF sequences imposes a cost without much benefit. It's a
sequence, but you don't know what sort of sequence: a mandatory RDF artifact
for an optional feature doesn't make much sense to me.
Plus, in the great marketplace of ideas, no single design/technology is
guaranteed to succeed. Spending too much time on any single technology at the
start might be an unwise investment. (Torvalds' theory on design and project management is useful reading on this note.)
Design By Committee: "...Yes, you understand me correctly, I'm more worried about the size and character of the community than the actual technical issue."
"Deployment Vertigo: the rapid advancement of the leading edge of technology (e.g., Moore's Law) when combined with conservative adoption (e.g., Stuck With Old Browsers Until 2003) induces a sense of vertigo akin to Hitchcock's famous track-out/zoom-in shot....."
I'd like to see a way of cleaning up and populating my reading list using the Amazon API, so I've written a small python script that works in straightforward cases -- no heuristics for correcting mistaken titles or author names and such. fun with xml and booklists
In addition to
the alarm about the unruly expansion of copyright, an
outcry over an offensive software or method patent is surfacing nearly every
week now. But the storm is not yet upon us, these are merely the first chunky
hail stones: it can, and probably will, get much worse.
Patents are supposed to be novel, useful, and non-obvious. However, these
are rather subjective criteria that require the discretion of knowledge,
experience, and good judgment. Such attributes belong to those skilled in an
art, not to bureaucratic institutions. (Witness how those administrative
functions formerly administered by John Postel, a skillful and respected
Internet elder,
are now bungled
by ICANN, the bureaucracy now responsible.) However, we have no great patent
arbiter, only a governmental process and this has led to a focus on, and
misunderstanding of, prior art by computer professionals.
The question of novelty and non-obviousness is proxied by a mechanistic
process of push and pull between a patent applicant and patent examiner. An
examiner, on his own judgment, can not easily dismiss the application of a
proprietary interest worth, potentially, millions of dollars. He can only
ask, "how is your claim different than this prior art." Once this
dance is done, a court is not likely to disregard the patent's novelty as
documented in its file wrapper (the exchange between the applicant and
examiner) and the resulting claims.
In the narrowest construction, this process of emulating good judgment
with respect to novelty and non-obviousness works: the resulting patent
claims are more narrow than the initial application with respect to some
existing works. But in the sense of promoting innovation and the "useful arts
and sciences" of computer software and networking, it is a huge failure.
As I've mentioned before, "Good technology,
often created through simple processes, lends itself to applications
unforeseen by its designers." As Lessig, in The Future of Ideas, amply
demonstrates this principle is what makes the Internet and Web such an
innovative force when as expressed as layered end-to-end architecture. To
adopt his metaphor, our common roads permit arbitrary journeys; our private
cars permit us to traverse our chosen paths. Much like the Internet and Web,
there are no patents or controls on the roads that determine where you must
go. (There are rules such as which side of the street to drive on, much like
networking protocols,
but these don't affect your destination.) It would be a shame to loose this
flexibility, and this is just what the patent system encourages: claims that
combine our common infrastructure and abilities in "novel" ways.
It's as if roads and driving themselves are recognized as an important
infrastructure and ability, but someone could patent using a car on a road to
drive to my house. Is using a car on a road to drive to my house
really that novel? The Patent and Trademark Office can not make this judgment
well, it will only look for prior art of someone previously,
explicitly, specifying this exact method in the past. Perhaps they
will find the method of driving to my house that I've provided on the
Web. The applicant might then amend their application such that they have a
claim for a car, on the road, driven to my house using a stick shift, and a
new claim for the same using automatic transmission. The claims have been
narrowed and there is no previous exact d
An outcry over an offensive software or method patent is surfacing
nearly every week now. But the storm is not yet upon us, these are
merely the first chunky hail stones: it can, and probably will, get
much worse.
Patents are supposed to be novel, useful, and non-obvious. However,
these are rather subjective criteria that require the discretion of
knowledge, experience, and good judgment. Such attributes belong to
those skilled in an art, not of bureaucratic institutions. (Witness
how those administrative functions formerly administered by John
Postel, a skillful and respected Internet elder, are now bungled by
ICANN, the bureaucracy intended to the same.) However, we have no
great patent arbiter, only a governmental process and this has led to
a focus on, and misunderstanding of, prior art by computer
professionals.
The question of novelty and non-obviousness is proxied by a
mechanistic process of push and pull between a patent applicant and
patent examiner. An examiner, on his judgment can not arbitrarily
dismiss the application of a proprietary interest worth, potentially,
millions of dollars. He can only ask, "how is your claim different
than this prior art." Once this dance is done, a court is not likely
to disregard the patent's novelty as documented in its file wrapper
(the exchange between the applicant and examiner) and the resulting
claims.
In the narrowest construction, this process of emulating good judgment
with respect to novelty and non-obviousness works: the resulting
patent claims are more narrow than the initial application with
respect to some existing works. But in the sense of promoting
innovation and the "useful arts and sciences" of computer software and
networking, it is a huge failure.
As I've mentioned before, "Good technology, often created through
simple processes, lends itself to applications unforeseen by its
designers." As Lessig, in The Future of Ideas, amply demonstrates this
principle is what makes the Internet and Web such an innovative force
when as expressed as layered end-to-end architecture. To adopt his
metaphor, our common roads permit arbitrary journeys; our private cars
permit us to traverse our chosen paths. Much like the Internet and
Web, there are no patents or controls on the roads that determine
where you must go. (There are rules such as which side of the street
to drive on, much like networking protocols, but these don't affect
your destination.) It would be a shame to loose this flexibility, and
this is just what the patent system encourages: claims that combine
our common infrastructure and abilities in "novel" ways.
It's as if roads and driving themselves are recognized as an important
infrastructure and ability, but someone could patent using a car on a
road to drive to my house. Is using a car on a road to drive to my
house really that novel? The Patent and Trademark Office can not make
this judgment well, it will only look for prior art of someone
previously, explicitly, specifying this exact method in the past.
Perhaps they will find the method of driving to my house that I've
provided on the Web. The applicant can then amend their application
such that they have a claim for a car, on the road, driven to my house
using a stick shift, and a new claim for the same using automatic
transmission. The claims have been narrowed and there is no previous
exact description of this, hence no prior art. Success, or failure?
It's a failure of innovation because even if the patent office is
reformed and there are more examiners with access to larger prior art
data-bases the claims only become more numerous. The space of
innovation layered upon our common infrastructure and abilities is no
less encumbered, it is only more complex and confusing. The Free
Software Foundation calls this the "new wrinkle" when they explain why
Patent Reform Is Not Enough.
Intellectual property lawyers know this, and they will refer to the
courts as a final arbitrar: "Yes, this process is, as all processes
are, imperfect and may yield mistakes, but in those rare exceptions a
judge or jury will decide." However, as I mentioned, courts are
extremely reluctant to second-guess the decision of a patent examiner
with respect to novelty and prior art. And this process is so
expensive it is an option only exercised by those who can afford
lawyers or their own patent portfolio. Sadly, those individuals and
organizations that provided the enabling concepts, technologies, and
standards of innovation are threatened from actually using them! And
the future of innovation is displaced by a malignant growth fed by a
downward spiral of greed (those that never innovate, only sue) and
fear (those that don't like the system but feel compelled to
participate as a defense).
Honestly! I had not intended to return to the frustrating topic of copyright for some time but Michael Eisner's commentary in the Financial Times has provided an opportune example of the misleading usage of the "property".
Abe Lincoln and the internet pirates: The great Emancipator's forthright defence of intellectual property rights holds true today.
What was that forthright defense? The statement that the restriction of speech and ideas, "secured to the inventor, for a limited time, the exclusive use of his invention; and thereby added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius, in the discovery and production of new and useful things." I do not disagree with Abe Lincoln, but I do disagree with Eisner because while he may laud the principle he has distorted and abused its application. And those of us that get fed-up with Eisner and his ilk sometimes lash out at the whole artfully constructed facade. This is a dangerous position for us to be in; as I wrote two years ago, "... it's difficult to voice this opinion because the small encroachments of copyright and patent that led to the present system are largely unseen. It's a creeping heaviness, but to complain of the invisible weight is thought to be unreasonable." However, my own reason does begin to fray when presented with a continued discrepancy between noble principles and unprincipled action: the perpetual extension of the original 14 year copyright term , the censoring of research, the theft of authors works via an underhanded amendment making all recordings works-for-hire, the acquisition of mp3.com by Universal which then slashed artist pay by 80%, the decreasing costs of producing CDs but the increasing price of purchase, the debt many artists are saddled with when producing an album, the likely destruction of small Internet radio feeds, and the royalties we all pay to the recording industry when we buy a blank CD-ROM (regardless of its use!). At times, in exasperation, I think that the likes of Eisner are not capable of honest argument: they mouth the words, "freedom, author, consumer, innovation", but their actions call out, "money and power." (In an ironic twist of naming duplicity, the law that I wrote my senator about a week ago was introduced this week as the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act!) But I digress, I've said all this before, it'll probably get worse before it gets better, and my goal is to look at how Eisner effects his spin.
In asserting the importance of physical and intellectual property rights in a democracy, Lincoln echoed the views of 17th-century thinkers such as John Locke, whose phrase "life, liberty and property" inspired the Founding Fathers.
Sorry Mr. Eisner, our Founding Fathers did not equate these limited monopolies on thought to "property." They approached this topic with care and concern: a limited monopoly (a detriment) balanced against a requirement to "promote the progress of Science and the useful Arts" (a benefit). Evidence of that care can be found in our Declaration of Independence in which Jefferson wrote of, "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
It is as American as the apple pie that one may not take off a neighbour's kitchen ledge.
But ideas are not apple pies. They are more like recipes that can be exchanged between friends and improved upon: "why fight over a slice of pie when through cooperation we can double its size?!"
This was proposed a while back:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/reagle/ICANN-p roposal-19990120.html
Guidelines for Proposed ICANN Policies and Activities
The ICANN Board will look to the following guidelines in the consideration of its own
conduct and proposed policies and actions arising from supporting organizations.
Accordingly, the Board expects that the supporting organizations will include
consideration of these guidelines as part of their policy development and evaluation
processes. These guidelines are not intended to be rigid. Rather, they seek to establish a
culture of institutional openness and accountability, and promote policies that are
intrinsically limited in their scope, but rigorous and uniform in their application.
Policies should be adopted on the basis of technical merit; policies should not
discriminate on the basis of expressive content.
With respect to proposed policies, consensus positions and recommendations should be
accompanied by minority opinions and dissenting views, if any. The consensus position or
recommendation should address and respond to minority concerns.
Activities and policies should be rigorous in defining and enforcing the scope of their
activity. Where appropriate, sunset clauses, expiration dates, and expectations regarding
the revisiting of a policy or activity should expressly stated.
Criteria of success should be expressly stated and used a basis for criticism and
improvement.
Proposed policies must be shown to be in the best interests of the Internet community
and should demonstrate strong evidence that such policies can be implemented. Where
appropriate, the Board encourages the testing of proposed policies on a smaller scale. The
implementation and operational use of a technical policy demonstrates an interest and
ability to deploy the policy at large.
Policies must be applied in a consistent, well founded, and uniform manner. Policies
should be designed so as to minimize the risk of selective enforcement or abuse.
The Board encourages policy development processes characterized by openness,
transparency, decentralization, bottom-up coordination and constructive competition among
small groups and communities.
How about the NYTimes then? (BTW a reader of the site sent me one (yes I'm that guy) but you'll have a damn hard time finding it from the NYTtimes site.) Yes, you can go to AltaVista and look search for link:avantGo in it, but it's a pittance of the potential content. I am the guy from the site and when I ask for the URL of palm accessible content from a AvantGo partner, I'm frequently shafted, just as I was at NYTimes. If you think about it, it is in AvantGo's commercial interest, nothing surprising. But that doesn't mean we should encourage them. So when I see someone advocate AvantGo, I will protest as it frequently means their content is no longer accessible on less propietary applications. ALL content should be palm accessible and have well known URLs. It doesn't need special HTML nor special conduits.
Read the freakin reference man! Do I say anything about their HTML? No! If an AvantGo is just like any other Web site (but without HTML whistles) then give me the URLs to those 'just like any other site'. The problem is the conduit.
AvantGo fragments the Web and encourages sites to remove their Palm accessible content in favor content available only through their propietary interface. Read about it at: http://goatee.net/2000/06#19mo
Come on, Deckard, show me what you're made of. Proud of yourself, little man? My turn. I'm going to give you a few seconds before I come. I'm coming. Four, five, try to stay alive. Come on, get it up! Unless you're alive you can't play. And if you don't play.... [you're dead]. Six, seven, go to hell or go to heaven. - Roy, Blade Runner.
BBC news is reporting that in an upcoming Channel 4 documentary, Ridley Scott acknowledges that Deckard is a replicant. Anyone familiar with the film knows this to be the case, but Scott's refusal to address the question fueled the most salient ambiguity of the film -- it's the door way to other fun speculation and analysis. In Parting of the Mist: Analysis of Blade-Runner [Italian translation], I not only presented much of the evidence that Deckard is a replicant, but argued that the film portrays the interaction of Deckard (who does not realize he is a replicant) and the other replicants (who do). While their interactions are apparently violent, it is ultimately a form of marriage, transference, and an exhortation by the dying for Deckard to carry on.
I'm not sure what the documentary will offer over Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner, but I look forward to seeing it.
Slashdot Mirror
How do I turn on transparency with the LiveCD in KDE? Don't see the option...
This was the notion behind P3P. Also see Agent: I dont think it means, what you think it means.
Abstract
As the deployment of computer agents that act on behalf of users grow, so do questions regarding the legitimacy and legal standing of computer based agreements. I note the use of the terms "agents" and "proxy" in the technical discipline and argue that a more explicit understanding of these terms is necessary to properly address the convergence of technical and legal issues related to electronic commerce. Unfortunately, much of the legal literature on the question of computer agency is preoccupied with concepts of intelligence, consideration, and intention within a computer program; this is because these concepts are found in law. However, these concepts are premature in a technical context -- regardless of hand-waiving about artificial intelligence. I provide a simple technical explanation of computer agents and proxies, as well as a brief etymology of those terms in the technical context. I conclude by pointing out some problems of making automated agreements on the Web in hopes that this small contribution will permit legal analysis to focus on pressing issues of the day.
http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-PICS-Statement
2. When access to a particular URL is blocked through an implementation of PICS, error conditions or other user interface functions ought to specifically indicate that the URL is not accessible because of blocking by a content selection tool. Relevant information could include:
a. the rating system whose value is out of range (if more than one is being used) and which variable and value led to the blocking of a URL.
b. some indication of where the blocking occurred.(i.e. is it part of the browser and under local control, or is it a proxy and if so who owns and/or operates the proxy.)
Why is this so funny?! What the fuck is wrong with you guys that you condone and laugh at sexual violence? If it was your brother, or you, thrown in jail for a little hack, or even some protest, do you think that is just? Should these people die of AIDS? They do you know. And it's used by the government to force confessions and plea bargains. You represent yourselves as cretin fascists, but I hope that isn't true and that you are just only terribly ignorant.
Someone asked me what I meant by "amortize" in my thoughts on Balancing the Swinging the Seesaw. Since I'm fond of metaphors, I dragged yet another one (home mortgages) into play.
Amortize: "To write off an expenditure for (office equipment, for example) by prorating over a certain period."
When I think about an application, there's a certain expenditure one must make with respect to design. I can do it quick and cheap now and incur most of the cost later when I'm confronted with issues of scalability, interop, and extensibility. Or I can spend a time at the start by modeling and designing for flexibility and extensibility, and consequently avoid compound interest in the future. Think of purchasing an old fixer-upper home: you can select from a couple of properties on the market. First, you want something with the a sound footing and an inexpensive price. Also, you'll probably need a mortgage. The smaller the down payment, the larger the total cost. So ideally, you want your down payment to be as large a portion of the total price as possible. But, your initial cash reserve is limited, so you commit to your down payment and then you can at least move in and start fixing the house and increasing its value. Same thing with applications! In the end you want to move in and improve where most needed, but you also want something with a sound architectural footing. That's a balancing act, though sometimes there's design principles and technologies that lessen (win/win) immediate and future costs. RDF has a great architectural footing those who don't like it are doomed to reinvent it poorly but an immediate/localized cost of comprehension. For example, in RSS 1.0 the order semantic of RDF sequences imposes a cost without much benefit. It's a sequence, but you don't know what sort of sequence: a mandatory RDF artifact for an optional feature doesn't make much sense to me.
Plus, in the great marketplace of ideas, no single design/technology is guaranteed to succeed. Spending too much time on any single technology at the start might be an unwise investment. (Torvalds' theory on design and project management is useful reading on this note.)
http://goatee.net/2003/07#_02we-a
Design By Committee: "...Yes, you understand me correctly, I'm more worried about the size and character of the community than the actual technical issue."
http://goatee.net/2002/03.html#_19tu
"Deployment Vertigo: the rapid advancement of the leading edge of technology (e.g., Moore's Law) when combined with conservative adoption (e.g., Stuck With Old Browsers Until 2003) induces a sense of vertigo akin to Hitchcock's famous track-out/zoom-in shot....."
I'd like to see a way of cleaning up and populating my reading list using the Amazon API, so I've written a small python script that works in straightforward cases -- no heuristics for correcting mistaken titles or author names and such. fun with xml and booklists
03.02.26.we | Non-Novel Patents
In addition to the alarm about the unruly expansion of copyright, an outcry over an offensive software or method patent is surfacing nearly every week now. But the storm is not yet upon us, these are merely the first chunky hail stones: it can, and probably will, get much worse.
Patents are supposed to be novel, useful, and non-obvious. However, these are rather subjective criteria that require the discretion of knowledge, experience, and good judgment. Such attributes belong to those skilled in an art, not to bureaucratic institutions. (Witness how those administrative functions formerly administered by John Postel, a skillful and respected Internet elder, are now bungled by ICANN, the bureaucracy now responsible.) However, we have no great patent arbiter, only a governmental process and this has led to a focus on, and misunderstanding of, prior art by computer professionals.
The question of novelty and non-obviousness is proxied by a mechanistic process of push and pull between a patent applicant and patent examiner. An examiner, on his own judgment, can not easily dismiss the application of a proprietary interest worth, potentially, millions of dollars. He can only ask, "how is your claim different than this prior art." Once this dance is done, a court is not likely to disregard the patent's novelty as documented in its file wrapper (the exchange between the applicant and examiner) and the resulting claims.
In the narrowest construction, this process of emulating good judgment with respect to novelty and non-obviousness works: the resulting patent claims are more narrow than the initial application with respect to some existing works. But in the sense of promoting innovation and the "useful arts and sciences" of computer software and networking, it is a huge failure.
As I've mentioned before, "Good technology, often created through simple processes, lends itself to applications unforeseen by its designers." As Lessig, in The Future of Ideas, amply demonstrates this principle is what makes the Internet and Web such an innovative force when as expressed as layered end-to-end architecture. To adopt his metaphor, our common roads permit arbitrary journeys; our private cars permit us to traverse our chosen paths. Much like the Internet and Web, there are no patents or controls on the roads that determine where you must go. (There are rules such as which side of the street to drive on, much like networking protocols, but these don't affect your destination.) It would be a shame to loose this flexibility, and this is just what the patent system encourages: claims that combine our common infrastructure and abilities in "novel" ways.
It's as if roads and driving themselves are recognized as an important infrastructure and ability, but someone could patent using a car on a road to drive to my house. Is using a car on a road to drive to my house really that novel? The Patent and Trademark Office can not make this judgment well, it will only look for prior art of someone previously, explicitly, specifying this exact method in the past. Perhaps they will find the method of driving to my house that I've provided on the Web. The applicant might then amend their application such that they have a claim for a car, on the road, driven to my house using a stick shift, and a new claim for the same using automatic transmission. The claims have been narrowed and there is no previous exact d
It's a shame that you think state sanctioned torture is acceptable! Why the hell would you endorse rape?!
http://goatee.net/2003/02#_26we
03.02.26.we | Non-Novel Patents
An outcry over an offensive software or method patent is surfacing
nearly every week now. But the storm is not yet upon us, these are
merely the first chunky hail stones: it can, and probably will, get
much worse.
Patents are supposed to be novel, useful, and non-obvious. However,
these are rather subjective criteria that require the discretion of
knowledge, experience, and good judgment. Such attributes belong to
those skilled in an art, not of bureaucratic institutions. (Witness
how those administrative functions formerly administered by John
Postel, a skillful and respected Internet elder, are now bungled by
ICANN, the bureaucracy intended to the same.) However, we have no
great patent arbiter, only a governmental process and this has led to
a focus on, and misunderstanding of, prior art by computer
professionals.
The question of novelty and non-obviousness is proxied by a
mechanistic process of push and pull between a patent applicant and
patent examiner. An examiner, on his judgment can not arbitrarily
dismiss the application of a proprietary interest worth, potentially,
millions of dollars. He can only ask, "how is your claim different
than this prior art." Once this dance is done, a court is not likely
to disregard the patent's novelty as documented in its file wrapper
(the exchange between the applicant and examiner) and the resulting
claims.
In the narrowest construction, this process of emulating good judgment
with respect to novelty and non-obviousness works: the resulting
patent claims are more narrow than the initial application with
respect to some existing works. But in the sense of promoting
innovation and the "useful arts and sciences" of computer software and
networking, it is a huge failure.
As I've mentioned before, "Good technology, often created through
simple processes, lends itself to applications unforeseen by its
designers." As Lessig, in The Future of Ideas, amply demonstrates this
principle is what makes the Internet and Web such an innovative force
when as expressed as layered end-to-end architecture. To adopt his
metaphor, our common roads permit arbitrary journeys; our private cars
permit us to traverse our chosen paths. Much like the Internet and
Web, there are no patents or controls on the roads that determine
where you must go. (There are rules such as which side of the street
to drive on, much like networking protocols, but these don't affect
your destination.) It would be a shame to loose this flexibility, and
this is just what the patent system encourages: claims that combine
our common infrastructure and abilities in "novel" ways.
It's as if roads and driving themselves are recognized as an important
infrastructure and ability, but someone could patent using a car on a
road to drive to my house. Is using a car on a road to drive to my
house really that novel? The Patent and Trademark Office can not make
this judgment well, it will only look for prior art of someone
previously, explicitly, specifying this exact method in the past.
Perhaps they will find the method of driving to my house that I've
provided on the Web. The applicant can then amend their application
such that they have a claim for a car, on the road, driven to my house
using a stick shift, and a new claim for the same using automatic
transmission. The claims have been narrowed and there is no previous
exact description of this, hence no prior art. Success, or failure?
It's a failure of innovation because even if the patent office is
reformed and there are more examiners with access to larger prior art
data-bases the claims only become more numerous. The space of
innovation layered upon our common infrastructure and abilities is no
less encumbered, it is only more complex and confusing. The Free
Software Foundation calls this the "new wrinkle" when they explain why
Patent Reform Is Not Enough.
Intellectual property lawyers know this, and they will refer to the
courts as a final arbitrar: "Yes, this process is, as all processes
are, imperfect and may yield mistakes, but in those rare exceptions a
judge or jury will decide." However, as I mentioned, courts are
extremely reluctant to second-guess the decision of a patent examiner
with respect to novelty and prior art. And this process is so
expensive it is an option only exercised by those who can afford
lawyers or their own patent portfolio. Sadly, those individuals and
organizations that provided the enabling concepts, technologies, and
standards of innovation are threatened from actually using them! And
the future of innovation is displaced by a malignant growth fed by a
downward spiral of greed (those that never innovate, only sue) and
fear (those that don't like the system but feel compelled to
participate as a defense).
One of the most immediate ways you can help is to stop perpeutating the linguistic fraud.
http://goatee.net/2002/03#_26tu
02.03.26.tu | propaganda (part 3)
Honestly! I had not intended to return to the frustrating
topic of copyright for some time but Michael Eisner's commentary in
the Financial Times has provided an opportune example of the
misleading usage of the "property".
Abe Lincoln and the internet pirates: The great Emancipator's
forthright defence of intellectual property rights holds true
today.
What was that forthright defense? The statement that the restriction
of speech and ideas, "secured to the inventor, for a limited time, the
exclusive use of his invention; and thereby added the fuel of interest
to the fire of genius, in the discovery and production of new and
useful things." I do not disagree with Abe Lincoln, but I do disagree
with Eisner because while he may laud the principle he has distorted
and abused its application. And those of us that get fed-up with
Eisner and his ilk sometimes lash out at the whole artfully
constructed facade. This is a dangerous position for us to be in; as I
wrote two years ago, "... it's difficult to voice this opinion because
the small encroachments of copyright and patent that led to the
present system are largely unseen. It's a creeping heaviness, but to
complain of the invisible weight is thought to be unreasonable."
However, my own reason does begin to fray when presented with a
continued discrepancy between noble principles and unprincipled
action: the perpetual extension of the original 14 year copyright term
, the censoring of research, the theft of authors works via an
underhanded amendment making all recordings works-for-hire, the
acquisition of mp3.com by Universal which then slashed artist pay by
80%, the decreasing costs of producing CDs but the increasing price of
purchase, the debt many artists are saddled with when producing an
album, the likely destruction of small Internet radio feeds, and the
royalties we all pay to the recording industry when we buy a blank
CD-ROM (regardless of its use!). At times, in exasperation, I think
that the likes of Eisner are not capable of honest argument: they
mouth the words, "freedom, author, consumer, innovation", but their
actions call out, "money and power." (In an ironic twist of naming
duplicity, the law that I wrote my senator about a week ago was
introduced this week as the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television
Promotion Act!) But I digress, I've said all this before, it'll
probably get worse before it gets better, and my goal is to look at
how Eisner effects his spin.
In asserting the importance of physical and intellectual property
rights in a democracy, Lincoln echoed the views of 17th-century
thinkers such as John Locke, whose phrase "life, liberty and
property" inspired the Founding Fathers.
Sorry Mr. Eisner, our Founding Fathers did not equate these limited
monopolies on thought to "property." They approached this topic with
care and concern: a limited monopoly (a detriment) balanced against a
requirement to "promote the progress of Science and the useful Arts"
(a benefit). Evidence of that care can be found in our Declaration of
Independence in which Jefferson wrote of, "Life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness."
It is as American as the apple pie that one may not take off a
neighbour's kitchen ledge.
But ideas are not apple pies. They are more like recipes that can be
exchanged between friends and improved upon: "why fight over a slice
of pie when through cooperation we can double its size?!"
The ICANN Board will look to the following guidelines in the consideration of its own conduct and proposed policies and actions arising from supporting organizations. Accordingly, the Board expects that the supporting organizations will include consideration of these guidelines as part of their policy development and evaluation processes. These guidelines are not intended to be rigid. Rather, they seek to establish a culture of institutional openness and accountability, and promote policies that are intrinsically limited in their scope, but rigorous and uniform in their application.
How about the NYTimes then? (BTW a reader of the site sent me one (yes I'm that guy) but you'll have a damn hard time finding it from the NYTtimes site.) Yes, you can go to AltaVista and look search for link:avantGo in it, but it's a pittance of the potential content. I am the guy from the site and when I ask for the URL of palm accessible content from a AvantGo partner, I'm frequently shafted, just as I was at NYTimes. If you think about it, it is in AvantGo's commercial interest, nothing surprising. But that doesn't mean we should encourage them. So when I see someone advocate AvantGo, I will protest as it frequently means their content is no longer accessible on less propietary applications. ALL content should be palm accessible and have well known URLs. It doesn't need special HTML nor special conduits.
Read the freakin reference man! Do I say anything about their HTML? No! If an AvantGo is just like any other Web site (but without HTML whistles) then give me the URLs to those 'just like any other site'. The problem is the conduit.
AvantGo fragments the Web and encourages sites to remove their Palm accessible content in favor content available only through their propietary interface. Read about it at: http://goatee.net/2000/06#19mo
http://goatee.net/2000/07#_10mo
00.07.10.mo | deckard is a replicant/h2>BBC news is reporting that in an upcoming Channel 4 documentary, Ridley Scott acknowledges that Deckard is a replicant. Anyone familiar with the film knows this to be the case, but Scott's refusal to address the question fueled the most salient ambiguity of the film -- it's the door way to other fun speculation and analysis. In Parting of the Mist: Analysis of Blade-Runner [Italian translation], I not only presented much of the evidence that Deckard is a replicant, but argued that the film portrays the interaction of Deckard (who does not realize he is a replicant) and the other replicants (who do). While their interactions are apparently violent, it is ultimately a form of marriage, transference, and an exhortation by the dying for Deckard to carry on.
I'm not sure what the documentary will offer over Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner, but I look forward to seeing it.