I'm in the "software shouldn't be patentable whatsoever" camp, but copyrightable? Really? Even open source software would break down in that instance, if every last thing was in the public domain (open source licenses are enforced through a system of copyright!)
There are other, more well known, entities that believe this as well. RMS has said that the reason for copyleft is because copyright exists...and without copyright, copyleft wouldn't need to exist.
I, on the other hand, have no problems with software copyrights, if they were limited to the original 18 years plus one non-automatic extension. And if they were limited to actual implementation (not just look and feel) of an idea, and not the idea itself.
Re: Re: Re: The problem with copyright and computer code
Provide multiple instances in case law where this principle is upheld (and NOT in trademark law or 'trade dress', as that is not copyright)
I doubt very seriously that Look and Feel is copyrightable, otherwise the big software vendors would be falling all over themselves to sue each other, since they all have very similar look and feel to each other.
Snowflakes are a valid addition to the site in that they help to encourage different sub-threads of speaking and argument in the same comment thread.
I like the snowflakes for two reasons...1.) It keeps the thoughts separate in my brain (because after a while I cannot figure out who is talking.) I'll read one comment from Anonymous Coward that doesn't jive with another, and I get confused because the same person is saying two completely different things, and 2.) It cuts down on the sockpuppetry. I've gone back to discussions we've had here "pre-snowflake" and have found on quite a few occasions that comments I thought were made by two separate people turned out to be comments by the same person who was just very, very good at trolling.
I have to as well. Vista had bugs in it related to DRM, such as when I'd place a pre-written CD-R in the drive and it would tell me that the disc wasn't formatted and would overwrite the CD-R, but I haven't had Windows 7 do anything like that to me. The only thing that I've experienced with Windows 7 has existed since WindowsXP (file transfers via SMB are abnormally slow,) but I am not sure this is related to the DRM issue that has been published and not just bad network coding. (FTP takes about 30 seconds to transfer a file which takes 8 minutes to transfer using SMB.)
Active Directory supports the LDAP standard. If you aren't using applications and systems that support authentication standards then you can't really blame MS or people who chose it.
Active Directory supports a bastardized version of LDAP, and every time there is a patch for active directory, something gets screwed up with our SAMBA servers. I hate updating our AD server, because invariably after doing so, I am recompiling SAMBA and trying to fix something that is broken. At home, I've switched away from using Active Directory as my LDAP server, and now have clients authenticate with an OpenLDAP server. Since then, my support requirements have dropped through the floor. Wish I could do the same at work, but my boss won't allow me to switch because "nobody ever got fired for choosing Microsoft." Found that using winbind fixes a lot of these problems, but with winbind, I have an additional mechanism that can break.
I would wonder why all these "other" systems did not support such a universal authentication store.
Most of them do. LDAP is pretty common, and most tools out there support some sort of LDAP authentication. My mail servers all authenticate against LDAP, since I have a fair amount of virtual users I don't want to create local accounts for. Dovecot, courier, and postfix all support LDAP authentication, as well as postgres/mysql authentication.
Three years ago we discussed the legality of police being able to search your mobile phone without a warrant after any arrest (such as, say, following a traffic violation).
Very few traffic violations result in an arrest. Most traffic violations are detainment situations...a cop pulls you over for running a red light, they are detaining you long enough to check your documentation and look for warrants or any problem with the vehicle or paperwork, write the ticket, and send you on your merry way. As such, there is not enough cause on a traffic violation to obtain a search warrant. Even violations that rate high enough to be a misdemeanor may not warrant an arrest...most just result in the cop scratching out a misdemeanor citation. However, if it is an offense that warrants arrest, then it appears that they can search your phone.
This may still have to go to the Federal Supreme Court, but at least at this point in California, if you have a phone on during arrest, they may be able to look through it without a warrant.
Are you a criminal justice major? You sure sound like one.
And why would this make what he is saying any less right... I'd say someone with those credentials would have a far better opinion of how the system works than some random Joe on Techdirt.
In California, Judges beat up on police officers who bring cases before them with a single charge of obstruction. Prosecutors usually automatically dismiss them now. And the reason isn't just for the purpose of stopping fishing expeditions, but also because some police officers have heavy badge syndrome where they feel they have to punish citizens that don't do what they tell them to do, so they arrest them for obstruction.
And for the record, I was a computer science major, in case you wish to question my credentials. However, I also have law enforcement experience too, so do with that what you will.
As soon as the police have probably cause (and that can be anything) they can search the whole car.
Negative. A police officer cannot search the car without a warrant. The only exceptions to this rule are: A) the police officer asks for permission to search the car and it is granted (however, it can be revoked at any time and the police officer must stop,) B) when the evidence is in plain sight (such as the loaded hand-gun lying on the front seat,) or C) when the person is under arrest and the car is to be impounded, then the police officer can take "inventory" of the contents of the car to assure that nothing is lost by the towing company. A police officer cannot search the vehicle just based on probable cause (Search and Seizure 101...)
For the most part, they ask permission.
Which can be declined at any time...and, most including myself would argue that it *should* be declined...if there is enough probable cause, the police can easily get a warrant.
Declining permission will often get the car seized until a search warrant is issued.
Negative. A police officer cannot seize anything without a warrant, and this includes a car. The officer may detain you while a search warrant is obtained, or if they have enough cause to arrest you, they may be able to get into the car to inventory it, but they have to have enough cause to arrest you first. They cannot arrest you without cause and then search the car to find that cause...otherwise the evidence will be dismissed as unlawfully obtained. If they have probable cause to arrest you, then they can inventory the car (which, according to the Supreme Court, isn't a search even if its result provides further evidence or evidence of other crimes.)
Basically, the officer states the reason for this probably cause and asks permission to search the car. If that is declined, he may in fact detain the driver (and passengers) until such time that a warrant is issued. The car could also be impounded pending that.
A police officer must have reasonable suspicion in order to detain for a traffic stop. They cannot just pull people over without cause. Detention is temporal, and a police officer can only detain someone long enough to determine whether a crime has been committed and whether there is enough cause to arrest the individual they are detaining for the crime. Warrants take seconds via a phone call to the duty judge....and most police officers would rather have a legal search and seizure than have to deal with the ramifications of allowing a guilty man go free because they screwed up in obtaining evidence.
I just picked up Gov't Mule tickets for $29.50 (and that includes the service charge.)
Of course, I'd pay $100 for a 5 hour concert...I figure $20 an hour for 5 hours of their time is a great deal, compared to $65 an hour for 2 hours of Sir Paul's time...I don't even get paid $65 an hour, and I cannot see how an entertainer feels his time is more valuable than mine. Then again, I feel the same about NFL prices, which is why I go to baseball games (at $11-18 a pop) than football games (at $200-400 a pop.)
thats true that the GD were there first in terms of fan taping. but i was talking about an artist approved repository of shows. do grateful dead fans have one?
Officially, no. However, GD and Phish tours routinely are posted on unofficial websites. And a couple enterprising folks have even taken those postings and dumped them to disk for the folks who cannot find them (and they don't charge that much...) Dick's Picks tends to take the music and put it on discs for sale for cheap...
Plus he has torrents up for his later CDs.
And Grateful Dead/Phish have never had any problems with Dick's Picks or any other taping efforts...but neither has Gov't Mule or a number of other bands I follow.
I just picked up Gov't Mule tickets for $29.50 (and that includes the service charge.) I've been to Phish concerts that were ~$40. Their concerts are usually 3-5 hours of extreme goodness, compared to the 2 hour crap most artists give you, at $100-130 a pop (with a 30 minute break somewhere in there.) I wish I could pick up DMB tickets...they are always sold out before they are offered to the general public here.
Mike Masnick does not often end up on the right side of intellectual property (IP) issues but he has in this case.
Oh, Ron, this is why we love you....at least we know where your bias is unlike the astroturfing anonymous cowards.
I, on the other hand, believe Mike is on the right side of intellectual property issues 9 times out of 10, but I am not a IP maximalist who believes that IP is a sacred cash cow. I'd be happy with 18 year term-limits on my copyrights (hell, my copyrights are distributed under GPL anyway, so everyone already has access to them,) and I'd love to see IP become a bit more reasonable than it currently is (where IP maximalists bend and break IP to become the cash cow it is, where the winner is the guy with the most/best lawyers who got there first without actually producing anything.)
I believe that most IP maximalists take liberty with other's IP, whether it is software vendors taking GPL code and using it in their software without following the license or patent trolls sitting on standards groups patenting anything that falls out of their meetings. If the end goal is to maximize your profit at the expense of your competitors, even when you can steal their work to maximize your product, and I believe Mattel is the end result of the equation IP maximalists seek...the IP Elite, who were there first and thus can spend all their time taxing everyone else since they don't actually have to spend any of their time or effort actually producing anything. I weep for new content providers, because they have to spend most of their time finding out whether or not someone else has been there first. Doesn't seem to matter whether it is patents or copyrights...especially since in this case it is a copyright argument (whether the dolls he produced during his work at Mattel look similar to the dolls produced by MGA Entertainment.)
Shouldn't that last "20" be a "00"? I cannot find the end of the string without a null (ok, maybe the implicit 0e/0c at the end of the post should tell me.)
We get it. Nobody is contesting what is currently written into the law.
I contest it. I want copyright to go back to the time limits that patents currently are and copyrights once were...18 years with one renewal.
36 years should be plenty of time for Mr. Larson or anyone else to receive adequate compensation for their art. After 36 years, it becomes public domain. Those of us who bought the art will still have it, and remember that we still have it, and will be able to make it available via Project Guttenberg or other online libraries.
That's the state of American Law anymore. It's not up to the letter of the law because every law has been argued so many ways and pled out to mean nothing.
I hate to break it to you, but American Law has, for the most part, never been about letter of the law. The federal rule, and most states, are based on "spirit of the law." Police officers/courts must enforce rules based on what congress/state governments meant when they put the law into effect.
However, equal enforcement of the law is a problem. Part of it is that there aren't enough cops on the street and part of it is that the cops that are out on the street aren't all-knowing and all-seeing. They saw you committing a crime and not the other guy, or the other guy had a better lawyer. Such is the risk/reward of the system we have (some people are quite happy with the current system because they are lucky and haven't been caught yet, while others get caught every time and hate the system.)
And though there could be some changes to the current system, it is better than what we could have (or as some believe, the system we will eventually have:) the one where a little black box issues tickets whenever you do something wrong, or one where you get accused of crimes you are innocent of and get thrown away.
It's pretty cool that the dude turned it over to a museum 60-some years before it was delivered.
I believe the dude's name, if I remember it correctly, was Clint Eastwood or Marty McFly, or something like that. He had a Delorian that he said needed to get up to 87 miles per hour for the flux capacitor to work. I thought he was smoking crack at the time, since my time travelling device just has a spinning lotto wheel on the back of it.
Fedora-Core-14-x86_64.DVD.torrent is only a crime in Microsoft's eyes. And if Microsoft gets their way, this will be yet another thing the EU anti-monopoly team can stick them for.
Same goes for FreeBSD-8.0-DVD.iso.torrent, though I suspect that FreeBSD would just roll over and play dead...as Netcraft confirms it.
On the post: Amazon Stops Selling Book On How To Game Amazon
Re: Re: ha
You still buy?
Hehehe...(I actually still buy stuff too...)
On the post: Don't Make An App That Shows You 'Drinking' Liquid From Your Phone, Or One Company Might Sue You
Re: Re: Re: Waste of time that is necessary
There are other, more well known, entities that believe this as well. RMS has said that the reason for copyleft is because copyright exists...and without copyright, copyleft wouldn't need to exist.
I, on the other hand, have no problems with software copyrights, if they were limited to the original 18 years plus one non-automatic extension. And if they were limited to actual implementation (not just look and feel) of an idea, and not the idea itself.
On the post: Don't Make An App That Shows You 'Drinking' Liquid From Your Phone, Or One Company Might Sue You
Re: Re: Re: The problem with copyright and computer code
I doubt very seriously that Look and Feel is copyrightable, otherwise the big software vendors would be falling all over themselves to sue each other, since they all have very similar look and feel to each other.
On the post: Just Because Some People Are Jerks Online, It Doesn't Mean You Need To Repeal Safe Harbors For ISPs
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I like the snowflakes for two reasons...1.) It keeps the thoughts separate in my brain (because after a while I cannot figure out who is talking.) I'll read one comment from Anonymous Coward that doesn't jive with another, and I get confused because the same person is saying two completely different things, and 2.) It cuts down on the sockpuppetry. I've gone back to discussions we've had here "pre-snowflake" and have found on quite a few occasions that comments I thought were made by two separate people turned out to be comments by the same person who was just very, very good at trolling.
On the post: Intel Claims DRM'd Chip Is Not DRM, It's Just Copy Protection
Re:
What does Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) have to do with this discussion?
I'm taking back the acronym!
On the post: Intel Claims DRM'd Chip Is Not DRM, It's Just Copy Protection
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I have to as well. Vista had bugs in it related to DRM, such as when I'd place a pre-written CD-R in the drive and it would tell me that the disc wasn't formatted and would overwrite the CD-R, but I haven't had Windows 7 do anything like that to me. The only thing that I've experienced with Windows 7 has existed since WindowsXP (file transfers via SMB are abnormally slow,) but I am not sure this is related to the DRM issue that has been published and not just bad network coding. (FTP takes about 30 seconds to transfer a file which takes 8 minutes to transfer using SMB.)
On the post: Judge Blocks Gov't From Upgrading Email System To Microsoft In Google Lawsuit
Re: Re: Many government systems are sold on MS
Active Directory supports a bastardized version of LDAP, and every time there is a patch for active directory, something gets screwed up with our SAMBA servers. I hate updating our AD server, because invariably after doing so, I am recompiling SAMBA and trying to fix something that is broken. At home, I've switched away from using Active Directory as my LDAP server, and now have clients authenticate with an OpenLDAP server. Since then, my support requirements have dropped through the floor. Wish I could do the same at work, but my boss won't allow me to switch because "nobody ever got fired for choosing Microsoft." Found that using winbind fixes a lot of these problems, but with winbind, I have an additional mechanism that can break.
I would wonder why all these "other" systems did not support such a universal authentication store.
Most of them do. LDAP is pretty common, and most tools out there support some sort of LDAP authentication. My mail servers all authenticate against LDAP, since I have a fair amount of virtual users I don't want to create local accounts for. Dovecot, courier, and postfix all support LDAP authentication, as well as postgres/mysql authentication.
On the post: Another Court Says It's Okay For Police To Search Your Mobile Phone Without A Warrant
Very few traffic violations result in an arrest. Most traffic violations are detainment situations...a cop pulls you over for running a red light, they are detaining you long enough to check your documentation and look for warrants or any problem with the vehicle or paperwork, write the ticket, and send you on your merry way. As such, there is not enough cause on a traffic violation to obtain a search warrant. Even violations that rate high enough to be a misdemeanor may not warrant an arrest...most just result in the cop scratching out a misdemeanor citation. However, if it is an offense that warrants arrest, then it appears that they can search your phone.
This may still have to go to the Federal Supreme Court, but at least at this point in California, if you have a phone on during arrest, they may be able to look through it without a warrant.
On the post: Another Court Says It's Okay For Police To Search Your Mobile Phone Without A Warrant
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Encryption
And why would this make what he is saying any less right... I'd say someone with those credentials would have a far better opinion of how the system works than some random Joe on Techdirt.
In California, Judges beat up on police officers who bring cases before them with a single charge of obstruction. Prosecutors usually automatically dismiss them now. And the reason isn't just for the purpose of stopping fishing expeditions, but also because some police officers have heavy badge syndrome where they feel they have to punish citizens that don't do what they tell them to do, so they arrest them for obstruction.
And for the record, I was a computer science major, in case you wish to question my credentials. However, I also have law enforcement experience too, so do with that what you will.
On the post: Another Court Says It's Okay For Police To Search Your Mobile Phone Without A Warrant
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Negative. A police officer cannot search the car without a warrant. The only exceptions to this rule are: A) the police officer asks for permission to search the car and it is granted (however, it can be revoked at any time and the police officer must stop,) B) when the evidence is in plain sight (such as the loaded hand-gun lying on the front seat,) or C) when the person is under arrest and the car is to be impounded, then the police officer can take "inventory" of the contents of the car to assure that nothing is lost by the towing company. A police officer cannot search the vehicle just based on probable cause (Search and Seizure 101...)
For the most part, they ask permission.
Which can be declined at any time...and, most including myself would argue that it *should* be declined...if there is enough probable cause, the police can easily get a warrant.
Declining permission will often get the car seized until a search warrant is issued.
Negative. A police officer cannot seize anything without a warrant, and this includes a car. The officer may detain you while a search warrant is obtained, or if they have enough cause to arrest you, they may be able to get into the car to inventory it, but they have to have enough cause to arrest you first. They cannot arrest you without cause and then search the car to find that cause...otherwise the evidence will be dismissed as unlawfully obtained. If they have probable cause to arrest you, then they can inventory the car (which, according to the Supreme Court, isn't a search even if its result provides further evidence or evidence of other crimes.)
Basically, the officer states the reason for this probably cause and asks permission to search the car. If that is declined, he may in fact detain the driver (and passengers) until such time that a warrant is issued. The car could also be impounded pending that.
A police officer must have reasonable suspicion in order to detain for a traffic stop. They cannot just pull people over without cause. Detention is temporal, and a police officer can only detain someone long enough to determine whether a crime has been committed and whether there is enough cause to arrest the individual they are detaining for the crime. Warrants take seconds via a phone call to the duty judge....and most police officers would rather have a legal search and seizure than have to deal with the ramifications of allowing a guilty man go free because they screwed up in obtaining evidence.
On the post: Case Study: How Dave Matthews Band Has Embraced The Modern Music Industry In Extraordinarily Profitable Ways
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Of course, I'd pay $100 for a 5 hour concert...I figure $20 an hour for 5 hours of their time is a great deal, compared to $65 an hour for 2 hours of Sir Paul's time...I don't even get paid $65 an hour, and I cannot see how an entertainer feels his time is more valuable than mine. Then again, I feel the same about NFL prices, which is why I go to baseball games (at $11-18 a pop) than football games (at $200-400 a pop.)
On the post: Case Study: How Dave Matthews Band Has Embraced The Modern Music Industry In Extraordinarily Profitable Ways
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Officially, no. However, GD and Phish tours routinely are posted on unofficial websites. And a couple enterprising folks have even taken those postings and dumped them to disk for the folks who cannot find them (and they don't charge that much...) Dick's Picks tends to take the music and put it on discs for sale for cheap...
Plus he has torrents up for his later CDs.
And Grateful Dead/Phish have never had any problems with Dick's Picks or any other taping efforts...but neither has Gov't Mule or a number of other bands I follow.
I just picked up Gov't Mule tickets for $29.50 (and that includes the service charge.) I've been to Phish concerts that were ~$40. Their concerts are usually 3-5 hours of extreme goodness, compared to the 2 hour crap most artists give you, at $100-130 a pop (with a 30 minute break somewhere in there.) I wish I could pick up DMB tickets...they are always sold out before they are offered to the general public here.
On the post: Judge Now Says That Mattel Doesn't Get To Own All Of Bratz
Re: One of the few times Mike Masnick gets it.
Oh, Ron, this is why we love you....at least we know where your bias is unlike the astroturfing anonymous cowards.
I, on the other hand, believe Mike is on the right side of intellectual property issues 9 times out of 10, but I am not a IP maximalist who believes that IP is a sacred cash cow. I'd be happy with 18 year term-limits on my copyrights (hell, my copyrights are distributed under GPL anyway, so everyone already has access to them,) and I'd love to see IP become a bit more reasonable than it currently is (where IP maximalists bend and break IP to become the cash cow it is, where the winner is the guy with the most/best lawyers who got there first without actually producing anything.)
I believe that most IP maximalists take liberty with other's IP, whether it is software vendors taking GPL code and using it in their software without following the license or patent trolls sitting on standards groups patenting anything that falls out of their meetings. If the end goal is to maximize your profit at the expense of your competitors, even when you can steal their work to maximize your product, and I believe Mattel is the end result of the equation IP maximalists seek...the IP Elite, who were there first and thus can spend all their time taxing everyone else since they don't actually have to spend any of their time or effort actually producing anything. I weep for new content providers, because they have to spend most of their time finding out whether or not someone else has been there first. Doesn't seem to matter whether it is patents or copyrights...especially since in this case it is a copyright argument (whether the dolls he produced during his work at Mattel look similar to the dolls produced by MGA Entertainment.)
On the post: End Result Of HADOPI? Higher ISP Fees
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Shouldn't that last "20" be a "00"? I cannot find the end of the string without a null (ok, maybe the implicit 0e/0c at the end of the post should tell me.)
But why keep the space after the "."
On the post: Dear Gary Larson: Your Kids Go Out At Night; Let Them Be
Re: Re: Re: To be Noticed or Forgotten?
I contest it. I want copyright to go back to the time limits that patents currently are and copyrights once were...18 years with one renewal.
36 years should be plenty of time for Mr. Larson or anyone else to receive adequate compensation for their art. After 36 years, it becomes public domain. Those of us who bought the art will still have it, and remember that we still have it, and will be able to make it available via Project Guttenberg or other online libraries.
On the post: Two Courts Disagree On Whether Or Not A Website Can Be Forced To Remove User-Created Defamatory Content
Re:
I hate to break it to you, but American Law has, for the most part, never been about letter of the law. The federal rule, and most states, are based on "spirit of the law." Police officers/courts must enforce rules based on what congress/state governments meant when they put the law into effect.
However, equal enforcement of the law is a problem. Part of it is that there aren't enough cops on the street and part of it is that the cops that are out on the street aren't all-knowing and all-seeing. They saw you committing a crime and not the other guy, or the other guy had a better lawyer. Such is the risk/reward of the system we have (some people are quite happy with the current system because they are lucky and haven't been caught yet, while others get caught every time and hate the system.)
And though there could be some changes to the current system, it is better than what we could have (or as some believe, the system we will eventually have:) the one where a little black box issues tickets whenever you do something wrong, or one where you get accused of crimes you are innocent of and get thrown away.
On the post: 'Spinning' Trademarked; Gyms Being Threatened For Holding Spinning Classes Sans License
Re: Re:
I never inhaled.
Can I please be President now?
On the post: Encrypted Civil War Message Finally Decrypted, 147 Years Later
Re: Re: Re: yeah, that's a neat trick
I believe the dude's name, if I remember it correctly, was Clint Eastwood or Marty McFly, or something like that. He had a Delorian that he said needed to get up to 87 miles per hour for the flux capacitor to work. I thought he was smoking crack at the time, since my time travelling device just has a spinning lotto wheel on the back of it.
On the post: OC ReMix: From Fans To Game Maestros
Re: Re: Re: Warms my heart.
At 98% now. Will keep seeding it for a while after I receive it. From what I've heard...its awesome.
On the post: OC ReMix: From Fans To Game Maestros
Re: Re: Simply NOT possible!!
Fedora-Core-14-x86_64.DVD.torrent is only a crime in Microsoft's eyes. And if Microsoft gets their way, this will be yet another thing the EU anti-monopoly team can stick them for.
Same goes for FreeBSD-8.0-DVD.iso.torrent, though I suspect that FreeBSD would just roll over and play dead...as Netcraft confirms it.
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