Funny how Apple supporters dismiss this reason when it's applied to Windows security, but when it supports Job's reasons for keeping FairPlay closed it's accepted.
You're right to point out the contradiction. However, another way of interpreting it is just that FairPlay is simply not as well-iplemented as Windows Media DRM. That would be an interpretation consistent with the view that Windows gets cracked not just because of its market dominance, but also because of its flaws in implementation. Maybe Apple simply isn't as good at DRM as Microsoft, which isn't necessarily such a bad thing.
People have been talking about 2007 becoming the year that music DRM dies. Well, here's the first phase in the music industry's plan to get rid of DRM. They want to up the price of CDs, so they can recoup the losses they say they'll take when they get rid of DRMed files for online stores. They're not going to give up DRM because they're smart. They're going to do it because they have no other choice. So they'll do everything they can to raise the price on CDs. Then they'll back online stores that use differential pricing, so they can charge $3 for the latest pop diva hit song, and $1 for "My Sharona."
I've never seen a specific provision stating that contracts are not subject to copyright, but it's certainly arguable, for the reasons I listed. Also, the primary purpose of a contract is arguably functional, which would possibly put it outside the realm of copyright. I think the main reason this is unclear is that nobody really cares about ownership of the language of contracts. There's just no money in it.
To my mind, this describes almost all movies, most literature, and an awful lot of software.
True. It just depends how far you go in abstracting the concept. I probably didn't explain it very well.
All movies need conflict. That doesn't mean that every conflict in every movie is the same. All software uses ones and zeros, but that doesn't mean that all software is unprotectable under copyright. There are some elements in a creative work that can be handled in a variety of ways. There are others that can be handled pretty much only one way. That is where scenes a faire analysis comes in. Admittedly it is a bit fuzzy, and one court might find something to be a scene a faire while another would not. But in general the legal theory is designed to keep copyright protection from overwhelming that which is so common and intrinsic to creative works that ownership would throttle creativity.
If you've written the screenplay to a movie and you create a scene in which two boxers are in a ring in an epic struggle, the producers of Rocky or Raging Bull can't sue you for infringement. It's a scene a faire. However, if you write a screenplay that scene-for-scene mirrors Rocky, down to the run through downtown Philly, the odd lisp, and the penchant for small birds, you would likely get sued for infringement unless you were creating a parody. The rationale is that in the latter case you are copying, and in the former you are applying your own creativity to a common theme.
In the United States, both forms of license agreement are binding. However, they must be presented in such a way that the mythical "reasonable person" would find them before using the product or service being licensed. For example, you can't place the shrinkwrap license on page 52 of the user manual for that new Dell. It has to be obvious, easily-spotted, and not buried in the box. With clickwraps, the Specht v. Netscape case established that they must be presented in a fashion such that it is clear and obvious that there is a license involved. You as the end user can elect not to read it, but you have been presented the opportunity to read it, so the law assumes that you have.
However, contract law in the United States still provides that bizarre terms in a licensing agreement will be held invalid. That does not mean that the entire contract is invalid, just that the offending sections would be. For example, if I buy a new iPod and the license agreement states that the first $10k I make next year will be sent to Apple in order to fund their 2007 New Years Eve party, such a term would be found by a court to be outside the boundaries of a license relating to an iPod purchase.
None of this means that EULAs aren't a pain in the ass. They are a pain to deal with, even for lawyers. I worked on one a while back, and I can see why they become so complicated. Corporate lawyers want to protect themselves from users who see juicy targets in successful companies. For example, EULAs relating to Internet services always have sections dealing with reliability of service. Companies have to expressly say that they are not guaranteeing 100% uptime, or someone will come out of the woodwork and sue them, saying they had a reasonable expectation of 100% uptime because the company marketed itself as a very reliable provider. Companies put in a lot of redundant language because they are trying to make it abundantly clear as to what they are not agreeing to and not guaranteeing. That way they they can defend themselves in court by saying that anyone who had even glanced over the EULA would understand that the company went out of its way to inform the user.
Unfortunately the effect is a complicated, hard to read document. Contract lawyers are slowly starting to change their approach. I've seen a few EULAs that use far less language, in an attempt to make the contract more intellible. Their argument in court would then be that although they didn't put in redundant language, their language was brief and clear enough that it was more likely to be read. I personally think this is a smarter, more common-sense way to go.
Given that a EULA contains a huge amount of intellectual property...
Actually most EULAs consist of the same language used in other EULAs. In that sense they are full of what in copyright is referred to as "scenes a faire," or components that are common to a particular type of work. For example, a movie about the Middle Ages might show some poor wretch gnawing on a piece of stale bread. This is so common that that particular scene in itself has no special creativity.
EULAs have at best a thin layer of creativity in the selection of certain stock phrases in order to compose a whole. In that sense they are probably akin to literary compilations, which have a very thin layer of copyright over the selection and presentation of the collected works. In the case of EULAs, I think it would be difficult to say that "You agree to indemnify and hold harmless..." and other stock phrases are anything more than scenes a faire.
I was talking with a rather high-powered copyright lawyer about this a few months ago, and he agreed with my assessment. There doesn't see to be any real pertient caselaw on this, so all opinions are equal until someone finds reason to bring suit for copying of EULA terms. I can't really see why any company would bother with it though. The language of a EULA is not something worth protecting, because in itself it does not produce revenue.
Btw, for those of your unfamiliar with American business, leaving "for personal reasons" is code for "We're dumping you, you miserable failure, but we'll sugarcoat it to salvage your dignity."
Usually that's the case, but sometimes it refers to a a situation in which the person leaving is so fed up with the organization that they simply must either leave in order to preserve their sanity. The company then uses the normal incantation to the press, to make it seem as though the person leaving was the failure, rather than the execs to whom he reported. I'm not saying that's the case here, but there's usually a lot more going on with these things than meets the eye.
Watch now for patents that come as close as possible to stepping over the line, but stop just short. Microsoft easily has the resources to toss up nuisance patents that block possible future development of BlueJ.
After publicly admitting the misstep with the original patent, I'm not sure what the value to MS would be in aggressively trying to thwart BlueJ. It seems their strategy here is to hold themselves out as an ethical player. They have to know that they're on notice now about BlueJ, and any attmpts to block it would be immediately picked up by the technology press, not to mention by existing BlueJ users.
Maybe I'm being too optimistic, but it seems it would be monumentally stupid for Microsoft to attempt to destroy BlueJ through legal means at this point. Perhaps they'll have to suck it up and just compete on technical merits.;)
pretty much anyone can do the job or knows a kid who can do the job
Ah yes, the old "the kids can do this in their sleep" chestnut. I think we're too quick to confuse mad skillz with actual ability to get things done under pressure for a professional organization. Often even in webmastering people skills and business skills are required, and they have nothing to do with technical ability. The one-person web shop has to be able to cover all of that ground.
There are still plenty of webmasters out there still, even if many of them have been replaced by specialized teams. In my experience, most of them are old hands, not newbies. I've also come across plenty of "webmasters" who have no idea what they're doing. Saying that anyone can do it is akin to saying that anyone can create a site with clean XHTML/CSS. It's easier to do now, but it's still a stretch for most people.
Why do some people never learn that annoying the shit out of people isn't a good way to generate revenue?
Yes, I know. Plenty of companies make a lot of money annoying the shit out of people. But dotcoms should know by now that in their market, they can't get away with that for long. It's simply too easy for customers to jump over to another product run by a company that respects its customers.
Now, though, it's a new year and it's time for the Wii to step up as a gaming platform.
Maybe it would be more useful to look at the Wii this way: Do people who bought a Wii enjoy it three months, six months, a year after purchase? The target audience is broader, and the games are different than those for PS2, XBox 360, et al. I'm reminded of all the early analysis of how the iPod was going to go down in flames. The analysts didn't understand that the target audience wasn't technophiles, but regular average everyday people.
Readers have mentioned licensing and other reasons why American's can't dive into the amazing bounty of Japanese bands on the store. But I think it's part of an evil plan to inflict pain and suffering on Americans. What else could rationally explain their attempt to keep thousands of insanely great Japanese pop tracks out of the hands of Americans?
Spawl != Less walking opportunities. That's your social conditioning talking. You think Spawl -> pedestrian unfriendliness and pedestrian unfriendliness == people afraid to walk. But it doesn't have to be that way.
I've lived in two major American cities, as well as a smaller city. Right now I'm living in the Sprawl. Here's how it works: In a big city you can generally get everything you need for your day to day life within a short walking distance. Time is the most important factor. When it's easier for you to walk to the store than drive there, you'll walk. That's exactly what I did when I lived in the city. Now that I live in the Sprawl, I have to make a conscious decision to spend more time in an effort to maintain my health. Everything is so far apart that in most cases, it's faster to use a car.
In an ideal world, we'd all spend the extra time and walk everywhere. But most people are pressed for time, and will use the most time-efficient means of transport.
As an aside, it is also more difficult to walk in the Sprawl simply because the streets and walkways are often decidedly pedestrian-unfriendly. Drivers rule the roads. In cities, pedestrians generally rule the roads. It makes a difference. Sure, there are parks and paths and so on in the Sprawl, but you often have to drive to get to them, and they're set up not as part of the daily routine, but as means of escape from that routine. Not very practical for day to day use.
The government of Norway is still not satisfied iTunes DRM, and has given Apple until September to change iTunes. Also, consumer advocacy groups in France and Germany are pushing for Apple to change the iTunes DRM.
So one EU government (out of 27), has issued an ultimatum to Apple. Consumer lobby groups in two other EU nations are also advocating against iTunes DRM.
is that when you're reading one, the book itself offers you no distractions. The physical book contains just the novel (or guidebook, or collection of short stories, or whatever) you're reading. Nothing gets between you and the content. The book offers escape from the short attention span theater we all live in.
So yes, I'll take the four novels and the guide book when I'm on vacation.
If I were a columnist for a computer publication, I'd sure as hell be writing about the iPhone. It's an easy target. Fantastic intro by Jobs, lots of oohs and ahs, and plenty of time to come up with reasons why it's going to Suck Like A Hoover.
I don't know if the iPhone is going to be a success or not, but all of the back and forth about whether it will revolutionize the world or be the biggest flop since the Cube are rather irrelevant. We don't know how durable the iPhone will be in actual use. We don't know if the spiffy interface really will be that much of an improvement over existing phones. We don't know what Cingular's iPhone plans will be like six months from now.
I am not at all satisfied with existing cellphones, because I always feel like I have to relearn things that should be simple every time I get a new phone. If there was ever a device crying out for an Apple makeover, it's the cellphone. I'd like it to succeed, if only so I can enjoy using my cell the way I enjoy using my Mac. If it doesn't succeed, at least Apple is trying something radical, instead of sticking with the same annoying interface standards that have made cellphones such a pain in the ass for so long. Apple doesn't need to own the market in order to succeed, either. Just look at the Mac. Microsoft beat Apple handily in the marketplace, but where are all the MS-DOS fanboys now? They're using an interface remarkably similar to Macintosh.
It is also rather appalling that a journalist missed the obvious fact that Apple merely wanted to control the unveiling of the iPhone. They're all about controlling the message, and it seems to me that Steve giving the iPhone keynote was better than Apple going after the countless bloggers who would have taken the FCC filing and run with it.
I for one am heartened to see that Congress hasn't gotten deflected from *real issues* by the sideshow of Iraq, gerrymandering, oil dependency, the education system, corruption on Wall Street, or the environment.
Slashdot Mirror
Funny how Apple supporters dismiss this reason when it's applied to Windows security, but when it supports Job's reasons for keeping FairPlay closed it's accepted.
You're right to point out the contradiction. However, another way of interpreting it is just that FairPlay is simply not as well-iplemented as Windows Media DRM. That would be an interpretation consistent with the view that Windows gets cracked not just because of its market dominance, but also because of its flaws in implementation. Maybe Apple simply isn't as good at DRM as Microsoft, which isn't necessarily such a bad thing.
Exactly, hasn't this been reported about 17 times already on Slashdot?
Like you said, it's *only* been reported 17 times.
People have been talking about 2007 becoming the year that music DRM dies. Well, here's the first phase in the music industry's plan to get rid of DRM. They want to up the price of CDs, so they can recoup the losses they say they'll take when they get rid of DRMed files for online stores. They're not going to give up DRM because they're smart. They're going to do it because they have no other choice. So they'll do everything they can to raise the price on CDs. Then they'll back online stores that use differential pricing, so they can charge $3 for the latest pop diva hit song, and $1 for "My Sharona."
The RIAA: Milking A Dry Teat Since 2001.
Google, meet Evil.
Or perhaps more accurately, "Google, meet Hypocrisy."
Well, you're kind of confusing the scènes à faire doctrine with the merger doctrine there.
Obviously you're right. Thanks for the clarification.
Wiping the tears from my eyes after laughing too hard.
And how could you copyright the EULA anyway?
I've never seen a specific provision stating that contracts are not subject to copyright, but it's certainly arguable, for the reasons I listed. Also, the primary purpose of a contract is arguably functional, which would possibly put it outside the realm of copyright. I think the main reason this is unclear is that nobody really cares about ownership of the language of contracts. There's just no money in it.
To my mind, this describes almost all movies, most literature, and an awful lot of software.
True. It just depends how far you go in abstracting the concept. I probably didn't explain it very well.
All movies need conflict. That doesn't mean that every conflict in every movie is the same. All software uses ones and zeros, but that doesn't mean that all software is unprotectable under copyright. There are some elements in a creative work that can be handled in a variety of ways. There are others that can be handled pretty much only one way. That is where scenes a faire analysis comes in. Admittedly it is a bit fuzzy, and one court might find something to be a scene a faire while another would not. But in general the legal theory is designed to keep copyright protection from overwhelming that which is so common and intrinsic to creative works that ownership would throttle creativity.
If you've written the screenplay to a movie and you create a scene in which two boxers are in a ring in an epic struggle, the producers of Rocky or Raging Bull can't sue you for infringement. It's a scene a faire. However, if you write a screenplay that scene-for-scene mirrors Rocky, down to the run through downtown Philly, the odd lisp, and the penchant for small birds, you would likely get sued for infringement unless you were creating a parody. The rationale is that in the latter case you are copying, and in the former you are applying your own creativity to a common theme.
In the United States, both forms of license agreement are binding. However, they must be presented in such a way that the mythical "reasonable person" would find them before using the product or service being licensed. For example, you can't place the shrinkwrap license on page 52 of the user manual for that new Dell. It has to be obvious, easily-spotted, and not buried in the box. With clickwraps, the Specht v. Netscape case established that they must be presented in a fashion such that it is clear and obvious that there is a license involved. You as the end user can elect not to read it, but you have been presented the opportunity to read it, so the law assumes that you have.
However, contract law in the United States still provides that bizarre terms in a licensing agreement will be held invalid. That does not mean that the entire contract is invalid, just that the offending sections would be. For example, if I buy a new iPod and the license agreement states that the first $10k I make next year will be sent to Apple in order to fund their 2007 New Years Eve party, such a term would be found by a court to be outside the boundaries of a license relating to an iPod purchase.
None of this means that EULAs aren't a pain in the ass. They are a pain to deal with, even for lawyers. I worked on one a while back, and I can see why they become so complicated. Corporate lawyers want to protect themselves from users who see juicy targets in successful companies. For example, EULAs relating to Internet services always have sections dealing with reliability of service. Companies have to expressly say that they are not guaranteeing 100% uptime, or someone will come out of the woodwork and sue them, saying they had a reasonable expectation of 100% uptime because the company marketed itself as a very reliable provider. Companies put in a lot of redundant language because they are trying to make it abundantly clear as to what they are not agreeing to and not guaranteeing. That way they they can defend themselves in court by saying that anyone who had even glanced over the EULA would understand that the company went out of its way to inform the user.
Unfortunately the effect is a complicated, hard to read document. Contract lawyers are slowly starting to change their approach. I've seen a few EULAs that use far less language, in an attempt to make the contract more intellible. Their argument in court would then be that although they didn't put in redundant language, their language was brief and clear enough that it was more likely to be read. I personally think this is a smarter, more common-sense way to go.
Given that a EULA contains a huge amount of intellectual property...
Actually most EULAs consist of the same language used in other EULAs. In that sense they are full of what in copyright is referred to as "scenes a faire," or components that are common to a particular type of work. For example, a movie about the Middle Ages might show some poor wretch gnawing on a piece of stale bread. This is so common that that particular scene in itself has no special creativity.
EULAs have at best a thin layer of creativity in the selection of certain stock phrases in order to compose a whole. In that sense they are probably akin to literary compilations, which have a very thin layer of copyright over the selection and presentation of the collected works. In the case of EULAs, I think it would be difficult to say that "You agree to indemnify and hold harmless..." and other stock phrases are anything more than scenes a faire.
I was talking with a rather high-powered copyright lawyer about this a few months ago, and he agreed with my assessment. There doesn't see to be any real pertient caselaw on this, so all opinions are equal until someone finds reason to bring suit for copying of EULA terms. I can't really see why any company would bother with it though. The language of a EULA is not something worth protecting, because in itself it does not produce revenue.
Btw, for those of your unfamiliar with American business, leaving "for personal reasons" is code for "We're dumping you, you miserable failure, but we'll sugarcoat it to salvage your dignity."
Usually that's the case, but sometimes it refers to a a situation in which the person leaving is so fed up with the organization that they simply must either leave in order to preserve their sanity. The company then uses the normal incantation to the press, to make it seem as though the person leaving was the failure, rather than the execs to whom he reported. I'm not saying that's the case here, but there's usually a lot more going on with these things than meets the eye.
Watch now for patents that come as close as possible to stepping over the line, but stop just short. Microsoft easily has the resources to toss up nuisance patents that block possible future development of BlueJ.
After publicly admitting the misstep with the original patent, I'm not sure what the value to MS would be in aggressively trying to thwart BlueJ. It seems their strategy here is to hold themselves out as an ethical player. They have to know that they're on notice now about BlueJ, and any attmpts to block it would be immediately picked up by the technology press, not to mention by existing BlueJ users.
Maybe I'm being too optimistic, but it seems it would be monumentally stupid for Microsoft to attempt to destroy BlueJ through legal means at this point. Perhaps they'll have to suck it up and just compete on technical merits. ;)
pretty much anyone can do the job or knows a kid who can do the job
Ah yes, the old "the kids can do this in their sleep" chestnut. I think we're too quick to confuse mad skillz with actual ability to get things done under pressure for a professional organization. Often even in webmastering people skills and business skills are required, and they have nothing to do with technical ability. The one-person web shop has to be able to cover all of that ground.
There are still plenty of webmasters out there still, even if many of them have been replaced by specialized teams. In my experience, most of them are old hands, not newbies. I've also come across plenty of "webmasters" who have no idea what they're doing. Saying that anyone can do it is akin to saying that anyone can create a site with clean XHTML/CSS. It's easier to do now, but it's still a stretch for most people.
Why do some people never learn that annoying the shit out of people isn't a good way to generate revenue?
Yes, I know. Plenty of companies make a lot of money annoying the shit out of people. But dotcoms should know by now that in their market, they can't get away with that for long. It's simply too easy for customers to jump over to another product run by a company that respects its customers.
http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2006/02/08/road_ahead _billgates/.
I found this using Google, of course. ;)
I went to school in California, so it's remarkable that I can tie my own shoes or go to the bathroom without assistance.
I went to K-12 in California, and I still can't tie my own shoes. You must have grown up in Atherton.
Now, though, it's a new year and it's time for the Wii to step up as a gaming platform.
Maybe it would be more useful to look at the Wii this way: Do people who bought a Wii enjoy it three months, six months, a year after purchase? The target audience is broader, and the games are different than those for PS2, XBox 360, et al. I'm reminded of all the early analysis of how the iPod was going to go down in flames. The analysts didn't understand that the target audience wasn't technophiles, but regular average everyday people.
Hilarious. Sad, but hilarious.
Readers have mentioned licensing and other reasons why American's can't dive into the amazing bounty of Japanese bands on the store. But I think it's part of an evil plan to inflict pain and suffering on Americans. What else could rationally explain their attempt to keep thousands of insanely great Japanese pop tracks out of the hands of Americans?
Spawl != Less walking opportunities. That's your social conditioning talking. You think Spawl -> pedestrian unfriendliness and pedestrian unfriendliness == people afraid to walk. But it doesn't have to be that way.
I've lived in two major American cities, as well as a smaller city. Right now I'm living in the Sprawl. Here's how it works: In a big city you can generally get everything you need for your day to day life within a short walking distance. Time is the most important factor. When it's easier for you to walk to the store than drive there, you'll walk. That's exactly what I did when I lived in the city. Now that I live in the Sprawl, I have to make a conscious decision to spend more time in an effort to maintain my health. Everything is so far apart that in most cases, it's faster to use a car.
In an ideal world, we'd all spend the extra time and walk everywhere. But most people are pressed for time, and will use the most time-efficient means of transport.
As an aside, it is also more difficult to walk in the Sprawl simply because the streets and walkways are often decidedly pedestrian-unfriendly. Drivers rule the roads. In cities, pedestrians generally rule the roads. It makes a difference. Sure, there are parks and paths and so on in the Sprawl, but you often have to drive to get to them, and they're set up not as part of the daily routine, but as means of escape from that routine. Not very practical for day to day use.
norway is not part a member of the EU
Call me stupid for missing that obvious point.
It also makes the "EU Countries Call Out iTunes DRM" headline even more ludicrous. Thanks for the correction.
The government of Norway is still not satisfied iTunes DRM, and has given Apple until September to change iTunes. Also, consumer advocacy groups in France and Germany are pushing for Apple to change the iTunes DRM.
So one EU government (out of 27), has issued an ultimatum to Apple. Consumer lobby groups in two other EU nations are also advocating against iTunes DRM.
is that when you're reading one, the book itself offers you no distractions. The physical book contains just the novel (or guidebook, or collection of short stories, or whatever) you're reading. Nothing gets between you and the content. The book offers escape from the short attention span theater we all live in.
So yes, I'll take the four novels and the guide book when I'm on vacation.
If I were a columnist for a computer publication, I'd sure as hell be writing about the iPhone. It's an easy target. Fantastic intro by Jobs, lots of oohs and ahs, and plenty of time to come up with reasons why it's going to Suck Like A Hoover.
I don't know if the iPhone is going to be a success or not, but all of the back and forth about whether it will revolutionize the world or be the biggest flop since the Cube are rather irrelevant. We don't know how durable the iPhone will be in actual use. We don't know if the spiffy interface really will be that much of an improvement over existing phones. We don't know what Cingular's iPhone plans will be like six months from now.
I am not at all satisfied with existing cellphones, because I always feel like I have to relearn things that should be simple every time I get a new phone. If there was ever a device crying out for an Apple makeover, it's the cellphone. I'd like it to succeed, if only so I can enjoy using my cell the way I enjoy using my Mac. If it doesn't succeed, at least Apple is trying something radical, instead of sticking with the same annoying interface standards that have made cellphones such a pain in the ass for so long. Apple doesn't need to own the market in order to succeed, either. Just look at the Mac. Microsoft beat Apple handily in the marketplace, but where are all the MS-DOS fanboys now? They're using an interface remarkably similar to Macintosh.
It is also rather appalling that a journalist missed the obvious fact that Apple merely wanted to control the unveiling of the iPhone. They're all about controlling the message, and it seems to me that Steve giving the iPhone keynote was better than Apple going after the countless bloggers who would have taken the FCC filing and run with it.
I for one am heartened to see that Congress hasn't gotten deflected from *real issues* by the sideshow of Iraq, gerrymandering, oil dependency, the education system, corruption on Wall Street, or the environment.