There really is no need for the new license, other than getting a few diggs.
I disagree. Whatever Six Apart's motivations, this is good for users. While MT source code has always been open for review and always modifiable by users, putting it under the GPL will create a licensing framework that goes beyond Six Apart's users. At the moment it may seem like too little, too late. I switched to WP some time ago, as did many other folks. But I'm going to give MT another look now, just to be sure I'm not missing anything. After all, WP is far from perfect.
Acuff-Rose is about a parody version of the song "Pretty Woman" and is only one of many decisions relating to copyright fair use, which is a complicated, very fact-dependent area of the law.
Everyone here has been focusing on copyright fair use, but Best Buy is really primarily concerned with trademark dilution. They have an affirmative duty to police their trademarks. If they don't, the marks could become diluted to the point that they loose legal protection. Fair use analysis for trademarks is different than for copyright.
In trademark, fair use is for good faith use of a descriptive term that has acquired secondary meaning and is now protected by trademark, in a descriptive sense rather than its trademark sense. You can use someone else's mark in comparative advertising ("like Coke, but tastier!"), to describe someone else's product ("Coke is a brand of cola"), or in a fleeting, incidental fashion.
The primary question in trademark law is likelihood of confusion. Will consumers be confused by the t-shirts? Will they think people wearing the shirts are Best Buy employees, representing Best Buy? A variety of factors are examined to determine whether likelihood of confusion exists. The improv folks seems to think there is a high likelihood of confusion, which could weigh against them in court:
It features our yellow Improv Everywhere price tag logo stitched on, and looks exactly like a real Best Buy uniform!
If I had a dollar for every time I've seen that question bandied about, I'd have at least enough money to see a matinee. Maybe even the 9pm show. Ever since the commercialization of the Web started in the late 1990s, there has been talk of "fixing" the Web. Java was going to fix it. XML was going to fix it. But nothing will "fix" the Web. It's an inherently messy environment, because of its openness. The bazaar is never as pretty as the cathedral. It's more dynamic, and it adapts to change faster, but it's always chaotic, a bit difficult to deal with, and seemingly on the verge of breaking down.
Female character sniffed. "Wooly-headed men," she thought.
Male character sighed. "If only other male character were here," he thought. "He understands women."
That's exactly why I gave up on the Wheel of Time somewhere in the middle of the third book. Jordan's view of relations between women and men was transparent, simplistic, and it infected every aspect of the story. I wanted to scream, "Stop writing and go get some female friends!"
If companies doing business with the communist government in China is a problem, then forbid any company in USA to trade with China and you will have solved the problem.
Everybody knows China and America do massive trade together. Congress would rather throw stones at Yahoo!, et. al. while maintaining China's favored trade status, sending athletes to the Olympics, and doing nothing about Tibet. Frankly I think trade with China is ultimately more constructive than China-bashing, but the Congresscritters want to have it both ways.
For every evil they do, they lose face and ultimately customers. That's exactly why we largely permit corporate greed, because it's supposed to work out in the consumer's favour.
It would be nice if you're right. I truly hope my cynicism is proven wrong. Perhaps that business organizations class last semester left me too jaded for my own good.
Some shareholders, perhaps, only invest in Google because of that motto. "Do no evil" will always play a part in resolving the wants of the Google shareholders.
I'm sure some investors put their money in Google not to make money, but to avoid doing evil. But fund managers and large institutional investors and high-wealth folks don't operate that way. That doesn't leave many shares for the "investment not for profit, but for warm fuzziness" crowd.
Google is just as good, bad, or ugly as the next public company. They're trying to balance the interests of their shareholders and their belief in doing no evil. In the end, the interests of shareholders will win every time. If they can keep clear of any illegal insider trading, mistreatment of employees, or other b.s. that affects so many public companies, that'll be a "good" outcome. Believing that somehow Google is different because it thinks it is different is pure fantasy.
It's 2007, folks. The Cult of the Shareholder rules.
The abundance of "lists as articles" makes me want to vomit, but this one takes the cake. They just randomly put down ten tech mistakes in an ad-baiting format (click here to see the next on the list - we won't tell you what it is, but if you click here, we'll get more ad revenue!). What's the time period? What are the criteria for selection?
The writers just pulled nonsense out of their asses, and somehow that passes as valuable information. In this so-called Information Age, one would think better writing would rise to the top. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case. We get crap, but at least we get it instantly!
As with so many other state attempts to legislate what citizens can and can't do on the Internet, this one looks like it violates the Dormant Commerce Clause. NJ is attempting to control what happens in NJ, but because this is the Internet, it affects online businesses that are operating in other states. Should an online dating outfit based in California or New York be forced to comply with NJ law? No.
For those of you who won't follow the link, but want to gauge the legitimacy of this post's summary, here's the scoop. Schneier's article links to a PDF of a 13 page paper written by John Tehranian, Professor of Law, University of Utah, S.J. Quinney College of Law. It's titled "Infringement Nation: Copyright Reform and the Law/Norm Gap."
So this isn't Schneier and it isn't some wingnut who knows nothing about the law.
If nobody gets to enforce copyright (especially not riaa) then why does slashdot get to ?
Harvard can enforce copyright through the traditional means. They can initiate a lawsuit against the Discovery Institute for infringement of copyright and violation of Harvard's exclusive right of distribution.
Enforcement of the law is handled by the legal system. DRM is not enforcement of copyright law. It is the use of technological means to limit the replication of media files.
with 9% of those saying they have considered non-Windows operating systems already in the process of switching and a further 25% expecting to switch within the next year
Being "in the process of switching" or "expecting to switch" are practically meaningless statements because they are forward-looking, and inherently subjective. Being "in the process" could mean anything from getting pricing estimates from vendors to installing hardware to finishing in-house training for your IT department so you can support the 100 Linux boxes you just installed. At any point short of hardware purchase, the switch could get derailed. "Expecting to switch" is even less reliable. I as an IT manager might be expecting to switch, but the CTO might block the effort. Or the CEO might. Or any number of things could happen. I could change my mind. The list goes on and on.
I'm no fan of Vista, but this data is almost useless. We'll just have to wait and see what actually happens. Prognostication is bound to fail.
I can see how "seriously" you're taking Linux as an option.
You can? I was putting myself in the shoes of a hypothetical IT chief. That says nothing about whether I've "considered" Linux or not. I went past the "considering" stage a long time ago.
More like: non-lawyer with too much spare time files an inartful lawsuit, blames the judge for his incompetence, then posts about it on slashdot to drum up publicity for his internet site.
What surprises me is that so many people seem to be taking his word for it. If you're a lawyer and you lost a case that was clearly an easy win, the last thing you should do is call attention to the fact that you made a colossal screw-up and allowed the judge to come to such a poor decision. If you're not a lawyer, but you're playing at being one, you should read a few more books before venturing in front of a judge again.
Also, the part about this judge's ability to decide torts cases, rape cases, etc. is absurd. Even the best judges in the history of American jurisprudence have made big mistakes at times. To characterize a judge as a moron for not deciding the case your way is a mark of the character not of the judge, but of the guy writing the article.
I give Playstation and Nintendo consoles 20 years more, maximum.
Twenty years ago the Macintosh was only two years old and Microsoft was selling far more copies of DOS than of Windows. Linux wasn't even a twinkle in Linus Torvalds' eye, and the FSF had just been constituted. The Nintendo Entertainment System ruled the console gaming roost, the Atari 7800 had just been released, and Sega was about to roll out Sega Genesis. Sony hadn't entered the market, nor had Microsoft.
Now Atari is gone. Sega is gone. Three or four years ago, many pundits were declaring that Nintendo was doomed to remain an also-ran. Apple has been counted for dead dozens of times in the past two decades but has roared back, entering two markets that didn't even exist in 1987. Microsoft is scrambling to stay atop the PC scrapheap, Linux has become a juggernaut in enterprise computing and a player in almost every computer market segment.
Twenty years is an eternity in the world of computers.
It's not even console wars anymore, it's content wars and there is no way that Sony and especially Nintendo will be able to compete in a long battle because Microsoft has already gotten so deeply involved in the surrounding factors, namely the internet and subscription-based services.
I think you're right that Sony and Nintendo will have a tough time competing in the content arena, but neither of those companies is competing on all fronts the way Microsoft has been for some time. Microsoft faces competition in the console market, the various OS markets, and in the content market. Integration of hardware, software, and content is very difficult. Sony, which by all rights should have been able to pull this off, has done a terrible job of it. Arguably the only company that has been truly successful at it is Apple.
Because Microsoft is now no longer competing in a closed system environment, they are open to attacks from disruptive new technologies, aggressive new web services companies, net access providers, and especially content providers who refuse to give Microsoft sole distribution rights. The network effect that served Microsoft so well in the past isn't present here.
Microsoft has a great strategy, but like Napoleon, they've aroused too many enemies and attacked on too many fronts. They face a tough battle just to stay relevant.
It seems I've hit two of the most sensitive issues on Slashdot: Privacy and the Libertarian Impulse.
You can't question unbridled privacy rights on Slashdot, even as a rhetorical exercise.
You can't question the Libertarian Impulse on Slashdot, at least when referring to Google. Government wields force and is dangerous. Enormously wealthy and powerful public corporation driven solely by profit motive doesn't wield force and is therefore non-dangerous. Simple, binary logic, but it seems to work for many folks.
I wrote: Anyway, the courts have acknowledged that this is an implicit, rather than explicit right.
You wrote: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
It's an implicit right, the parameters of which have been defined by the courts. In defining implicit rights, the courts have attempted to ensure that they will not get trampled on account of not being explicitly defined in the Constitution. I submit that those rights not defined in the Constitution are constantly under attack, and sometimes as a practical matter they need to be defined in order to delineate those rights held by the people.
If the government wants to change what privacy means to THEM, they need a constitutional amendment.
The "right of privacy" is a judicial construct. I'm not saying that it is a bad construct, but you'll never see the word "privacy" in the Constitution. In interpreting the 4th Amendment, the Supreme Court has constructed a Constitutional protection of privacy. Maybe the definition of "activist judges" depends on where you sit. Anyway, the courts have acknowledged that this is an implicit, rather than explicit right.
Legislative acts have also defined privacy in their own ways, but the term "privacy" is a difficult one to define with precision when we're dealing with electronic communications. If the limits of privacy are no longer defined by your physical presence, how far does your right to privacy extend? With so much of our lives being lived online, would excessive provisions for privacy actually extend the doctrine further than it was originally intended?
Another question: We place our trust in Google every time we use its services, but why do we place more trust in a profit-maximizing enterprise than in our own government? Ostensibly we can hold our government accountable through elections, but we have less influence on corporations. Sure, we have the power of the wallet, but when's the last time you saw an effective consumer boycott in the information economy?
... that so many people need to be reminded of this:
In fact, that's why we got rid of the King in the first place, and replaced him with a three part government, each of which can check the other.
And odder still that so many people seem to crave a unitary executive, a king by another name. It seems too many Americans take their blessings for granted, and are willing to simply throw them away because it's too much effort to deal with the messiness of governing. Easier to have one guy in charge. That way the voter bears no responsibility, and everyone has a scapegoat when things go wrong. No need to look in the mirror. No need to read up on the issues, or send letters, or protest. Everyone can be smart and smug and self-righteous, while the unitary executive fucks us into the ground.
Slashdot Mirror
Although css could use some work...
Agreed. It wouldn't fix the Web, but it would make my life a lot easier.
There really is no need for the new license, other than getting a few diggs.
I disagree. Whatever Six Apart's motivations, this is good for users. While MT source code has always been open for review and always modifiable by users, putting it under the GPL will create a licensing framework that goes beyond Six Apart's users. At the moment it may seem like too little, too late. I switched to WP some time ago, as did many other folks. But I'm going to give MT another look now, just to be sure I'm not missing anything. After all, WP is far from perfect.
Parody is allowed
Acuff-Rose is about a parody version of the song "Pretty Woman" and is only one of many decisions relating to copyright fair use, which is a complicated, very fact-dependent area of the law.
Everyone here has been focusing on copyright fair use, but Best Buy is really primarily concerned with trademark dilution. They have an affirmative duty to police their trademarks. If they don't, the marks could become diluted to the point that they loose legal protection. Fair use analysis for trademarks is different than for copyright.
In trademark, fair use is for good faith use of a descriptive term that has acquired secondary meaning and is now protected by trademark, in a descriptive sense rather than its trademark sense. You can use someone else's mark in comparative advertising ("like Coke, but tastier!"), to describe someone else's product ("Coke is a brand of cola"), or in a fleeting, incidental fashion.
The primary question in trademark law is likelihood of confusion. Will consumers be confused by the t-shirts? Will they think people wearing the shirts are Best Buy employees, representing Best Buy? A variety of factors are examined to determine whether likelihood of confusion exists. The improv folks seems to think there is a high likelihood of confusion, which could weigh against them in court:
Not that it will get to court.
How are we to fix the web?
If I had a dollar for every time I've seen that question bandied about, I'd have at least enough money to see a matinee. Maybe even the 9pm show. Ever since the commercialization of the Web started in the late 1990s, there has been talk of "fixing" the Web. Java was going to fix it. XML was going to fix it. But nothing will "fix" the Web. It's an inherently messy environment, because of its openness. The bazaar is never as pretty as the cathedral. It's more dynamic, and it adapts to change faster, but it's always chaotic, a bit difficult to deal with, and seemingly on the verge of breaking down.
Female character sniffed. "Wooly-headed men," she thought.
Male character sighed. "If only other male character were here," he thought. "He understands women."
That's exactly why I gave up on the Wheel of Time somewhere in the middle of the third book. Jordan's view of relations between women and men was transparent, simplistic, and it infected every aspect of the story. I wanted to scream, "Stop writing and go get some female friends!"
If companies doing business with the communist government in China is a problem, then forbid any company in USA to trade with China and you will have solved the problem.
Everybody knows China and America do massive trade together. Congress would rather throw stones at Yahoo!, et. al. while maintaining China's favored trade status, sending athletes to the Olympics, and doing nothing about Tibet. Frankly I think trade with China is ultimately more constructive than China-bashing, but the Congresscritters want to have it both ways.
Sounds a bit spicier than the norm for cases like these.
For every evil they do, they lose face and ultimately customers. That's exactly why we largely permit corporate greed, because it's supposed to work out in the consumer's favour.
It would be nice if you're right. I truly hope my cynicism is proven wrong. Perhaps that business organizations class last semester left me too jaded for my own good.
Some shareholders, perhaps, only invest in Google because of that motto. "Do no evil" will always play a part in resolving the wants of the Google shareholders.
I'm sure some investors put their money in Google not to make money, but to avoid doing evil. But fund managers and large institutional investors and high-wealth folks don't operate that way. That doesn't leave many shares for the "investment not for profit, but for warm fuzziness" crowd.
"Do no evil"?
Do no evil + IPO = Public company
IPO = Public company
Google is just as good, bad, or ugly as the next public company. They're trying to balance the interests of their shareholders and their belief in doing no evil. In the end, the interests of shareholders will win every time. If they can keep clear of any illegal insider trading, mistreatment of employees, or other b.s. that affects so many public companies, that'll be a "good" outcome. Believing that somehow Google is different because it thinks it is different is pure fantasy.
It's 2007, folks. The Cult of the Shareholder rules.
The abundance of "lists as articles" makes me want to vomit, but this one takes the cake. They just randomly put down ten tech mistakes in an ad-baiting format (click here to see the next on the list - we won't tell you what it is, but if you click here, we'll get more ad revenue!). What's the time period? What are the criteria for selection?
The writers just pulled nonsense out of their asses, and somehow that passes as valuable information. In this so-called Information Age, one would think better writing would rise to the top. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case. We get crap, but at least we get it instantly!
As with so many other state attempts to legislate what citizens can and can't do on the Internet, this one looks like it violates the Dormant Commerce Clause. NJ is attempting to control what happens in NJ, but because this is the Internet, it affects online businesses that are operating in other states. Should an online dating outfit based in California or New York be forced to comply with NJ law? No.
For those of you who won't follow the link, but want to gauge the legitimacy of this post's summary, here's the scoop. Schneier's article links to a PDF of a 13 page paper written by John Tehranian, Professor of Law, University of Utah, S.J. Quinney College of Law. It's titled "Infringement Nation: Copyright Reform and the Law/Norm Gap."
So this isn't Schneier and it isn't some wingnut who knows nothing about the law.
If nobody gets to enforce copyright (especially not riaa) then why does slashdot get to ?
Harvard can enforce copyright through the traditional means. They can initiate a lawsuit against the Discovery Institute for infringement of copyright and violation of Harvard's exclusive right of distribution.
Enforcement of the law is handled by the legal system. DRM is not enforcement of copyright law. It is the use of technological means to limit the replication of media files.
with 9% of those saying they have considered non-Windows operating systems already in the process of switching and a further 25% expecting to switch within the next year
Being "in the process of switching" or "expecting to switch" are practically meaningless statements because they are forward-looking, and inherently subjective. Being "in the process" could mean anything from getting pricing estimates from vendors to installing hardware to finishing in-house training for your IT department so you can support the 100 Linux boxes you just installed. At any point short of hardware purchase, the switch could get derailed. "Expecting to switch" is even less reliable. I as an IT manager might be expecting to switch, but the CTO might block the effort. Or the CEO might. Or any number of things could happen. I could change my mind. The list goes on and on.
I'm no fan of Vista, but this data is almost useless. We'll just have to wait and see what actually happens. Prognostication is bound to fail.
I can see how "seriously" you're taking Linux as an option.
You can? I was putting myself in the shoes of a hypothetical IT chief. That says nothing about whether I've "considered" Linux or not. I went past the "considering" stage a long time ago.
More like: non-lawyer with too much spare time files an inartful lawsuit, blames the judge for his incompetence, then posts about it on slashdot to drum up publicity for his internet site.
What surprises me is that so many people seem to be taking his word for it. If you're a lawyer and you lost a case that was clearly an easy win, the last thing you should do is call attention to the fact that you made a colossal screw-up and allowed the judge to come to such a poor decision. If you're not a lawyer, but you're playing at being one, you should read a few more books before venturing in front of a judge again.
Also, the part about this judge's ability to decide torts cases, rape cases, etc. is absurd. Even the best judges in the history of American jurisprudence have made big mistakes at times. To characterize a judge as a moron for not deciding the case your way is a mark of the character not of the judge, but of the guy writing the article.
44% are considering moving to another operating system. That's so broad as to be almost useless. "Considering" could mean:
I give Playstation and Nintendo consoles 20 years more, maximum.
Twenty years ago the Macintosh was only two years old and Microsoft was selling far more copies of DOS than of Windows. Linux wasn't even a twinkle in Linus Torvalds' eye, and the FSF had just been constituted. The Nintendo Entertainment System ruled the console gaming roost, the Atari 7800 had just been released, and Sega was about to roll out Sega Genesis. Sony hadn't entered the market, nor had Microsoft.
Now Atari is gone. Sega is gone. Three or four years ago, many pundits were declaring that Nintendo was doomed to remain an also-ran. Apple has been counted for dead dozens of times in the past two decades but has roared back, entering two markets that didn't even exist in 1987. Microsoft is scrambling to stay atop the PC scrapheap, Linux has become a juggernaut in enterprise computing and a player in almost every computer market segment.
Twenty years is an eternity in the world of computers.
It's not even console wars anymore, it's content wars and there is no way that Sony and especially Nintendo will be able to compete in a long battle because Microsoft has already gotten so deeply involved in the surrounding factors, namely the internet and subscription-based services.
I think you're right that Sony and Nintendo will have a tough time competing in the content arena, but neither of those companies is competing on all fronts the way Microsoft has been for some time. Microsoft faces competition in the console market, the various OS markets, and in the content market. Integration of hardware, software, and content is very difficult. Sony, which by all rights should have been able to pull this off, has done a terrible job of it. Arguably the only company that has been truly successful at it is Apple.
Because Microsoft is now no longer competing in a closed system environment, they are open to attacks from disruptive new technologies, aggressive new web services companies, net access providers, and especially content providers who refuse to give Microsoft sole distribution rights. The network effect that served Microsoft so well in the past isn't present here.
Microsoft has a great strategy, but like Napoleon, they've aroused too many enemies and attacked on too many fronts. They face a tough battle just to stay relevant.
You assume studio execs would get that close to a church.
Hah! Good point. Hollywood execs wouldn't be near a church. If we were talking about oil company execs, on the other hand... .
It seems I've hit two of the most sensitive issues on Slashdot: Privacy and the Libertarian Impulse.
You can't question unbridled privacy rights on Slashdot, even as a rhetorical exercise.
You can't question the Libertarian Impulse on Slashdot, at least when referring to Google. Government wields force and is dangerous. Enormously wealthy and powerful public corporation driven solely by profit motive doesn't wield force and is therefore non-dangerous. Simple, binary logic, but it seems to work for many folks.
You're the sort of person for whom the Bill of Rights was added, because you simply don't understand the concept.
Gee, thanks for enlightening me. I appreciate your insights into my cognitive abilities, too.
I wrote: Anyway, the courts have acknowledged that this is an implicit, rather than explicit right.
You wrote: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
It's an implicit right, the parameters of which have been defined by the courts. In defining implicit rights, the courts have attempted to ensure that they will not get trampled on account of not being explicitly defined in the Constitution. I submit that those rights not defined in the Constitution are constantly under attack, and sometimes as a practical matter they need to be defined in order to delineate those rights held by the people.
If the government wants to change what privacy means to THEM, they need a constitutional amendment.
The "right of privacy" is a judicial construct. I'm not saying that it is a bad construct, but you'll never see the word "privacy" in the Constitution. In interpreting the 4th Amendment, the Supreme Court has constructed a Constitutional protection of privacy. Maybe the definition of "activist judges" depends on where you sit. Anyway, the courts have acknowledged that this is an implicit, rather than explicit right.
Legislative acts have also defined privacy in their own ways, but the term "privacy" is a difficult one to define with precision when we're dealing with electronic communications. If the limits of privacy are no longer defined by your physical presence, how far does your right to privacy extend? With so much of our lives being lived online, would excessive provisions for privacy actually extend the doctrine further than it was originally intended?
Another question: We place our trust in Google every time we use its services, but why do we place more trust in a profit-maximizing enterprise than in our own government? Ostensibly we can hold our government accountable through elections, but we have less influence on corporations. Sure, we have the power of the wallet, but when's the last time you saw an effective consumer boycott in the information economy?
... that so many people need to be reminded of this:
In fact, that's why we got rid of the King in the first place, and replaced him with a three part government, each of which can check the other.
And odder still that so many people seem to crave a unitary executive, a king by another name. It seems too many Americans take their blessings for granted, and are willing to simply throw them away because it's too much effort to deal with the messiness of governing. Easier to have one guy in charge. That way the voter bears no responsibility, and everyone has a scapegoat when things go wrong. No need to look in the mirror. No need to read up on the issues, or send letters, or protest. Everyone can be smart and smug and self-righteous, while the unitary executive fucks us into the ground.