"In the First Amendment, the operative word would be "speech".
Look it up."
If you looked it up yourself, you would see another form of speech mentioned there -- "the press", which was the short-hand for the only existing long-distance/multicast medium of the time. The modern equivalent of "the press" is anything you can do on the Internet.
This trademark dispute came up before, between the same schools
This all started with UoS-California's "USC Graphic Identity Program" in 1994. They won the right to the USC trademark back then, after a similar legal fight with UoS-Carolina, so that they could make it a standard part of their letterhead, etc.
This SC interlock logo seems more about the sports promotion side, and UoS-California was first to market with their use. The Gamecocks not only tried a similar interlocking SC pattern on sportswear, but also had similar shades of red on the lettering to the existing TM.
A reminder: Trademark ownership is not based on first to business or even first to use, but only the first registered use in commerce. The game company Insomniac Games won a similar TM scuffle against another game company Insomniac Studios, because Insomniac Games were the first company with a game on the shelves with their "Insomniac" TM on the packaging. Insomniac Studios changed their name before their first release to resolve it. Insomniac is still a dictionary word that anyone can use. The fight here is over branding and use in commerce or promotion, not about who can use the USC abbreviation in other contexts.
I fervently disagree with the implication that corporations should be given any form of free speech. By definition, corporations are limited liability and are immortal. Their bylaws and government definitions dictate that their members are less liable for their actions than any individual citizen, and they survive the loss of any part of their membership. Those same laws also dictate that they act solely in the best interest of their shareholders, and the only way that interest is defined is with money, via profit.
Creating a legal entity like a corporation is like creating a immortal robot sociopath with turrets syndrome, and then granting it "personhood", with the exact same rights as self-controlled mortals. We have already seen the consequences of this in their advertising, which have nothing to do with facts or reality (i.e. allergy medication that will allow you to surf on wheat fields). Letting this robot monster loose in the political field will just further the damage they already started.
"I'm still hopeful that new technologies will make spectrum scarcity a thing of the past, we still haven't seen enough evidence that the technology really works."
It will work when it has to work. It doesn't work now because the spectrum monopolies allow the incumbents to stay lazy, and pervade poorly designed hardware with impunity. As soon as you take away their monopolies, they will have to start innovating again.
These should be required reading when discussing spectrum policy:
The physical facts dictate that all wireless spectrum is composed of electromagnetic waves of varying frequencies, which is another way of saying they are all different colors. The only confusing aspect is that we can't see most of these colors with the naked eye, and some frequencies have properties that allow them to travel differently through air, liquid, and mass. That doesn't change the fact that they are just colors, subject to the same physical laws that make advanced sensing equipment like eyes and cameras work. Confusing one "signal" for another is the same as confusing a red apple with a nearby red firetruck -- the only limitation is the sensing equipment. The FCC has been in the business of granting color monopolies for almost a century, and keeping the sensing equipment as dumb and blind as possible, and is reluctant to give that job up. Hooray to the Justice Department for giving them a kick!
If you don't think the technology is already far enough along yet, you also need to read this:
"The cochlea can perceive a 100-fold range of frequencies -- in humans, from 100 to 10,000 Hz. Sarpeshkar used the same design principles in the RF cochlea to create a device that can perceive signals at million-fold higher frequencies, which includes radio signals for most commercial wireless applications."
This is a "radio" that can process all frequencies on the entire RF range we use now, simultaneously. You could plug it into a sufficiently powerful computer, and process HDTV, Satellite, HD-Audio/AM/FM, WiFi, and cell phone signals (all #G's) on every network, all at the same time, all in software. This is a chip made in a lab, that can be reproduced in mass just like any other chip.
The barriers are all bureaucratic -- none of them are physical nor technological limits. At this point, they're not even economic limits -- they're just stupid limits, that help no one except lazy monopolists.
Re: Re: Of course you are being watched! This is news?
"Do you have anything to hide?"
Of course I have something to hide! Credit card numbers, account balances, health history, favorite TV shows that I'm embarrassed about, half of what I did in college, that one paper on feminism, what I *really* think about George Bush....
Can you honestly tell me that you want a government who can't even keep a secret watch list *really secret at all* to have access to all your data? As if it wont instantly leak to criminals no matter how "secret" they think they're keeping it? More of that data is probably put to use by the Mob insiders than the Fed. Do you want the Mafia (name your favorite) to have all your conversations on record?
Label monopolies like encouraging other audio monopolies, like radio. They want to control your ears and air waves any way they can, so they can keep charging you their monopoly rents.
Did everyone else miss the fact that AT&T has basically admitted that they allowed the NSA to wiretap all their lines, and searched for immunity from prosecution for violating their customers' privacy. It took a whistleblower in their SF office to get that process started, but they haven't denied it. Or what about the story of the FBI tap at Verizon? Or have you heard the fact that wireless calls can be tapped indiscriminately just because they're wireless, so such a tap isn't considered "invasive." Have any of the related ACLU suits been resolved?
If you use a phone, or send anything over the Internet in plain-text, the government has full access to that data. The only question is what "keywords" they're using in their sweeping searches on all that data, and they'll never tell us that.
The main problem with this guy isn't any tin foil hats -- it's the fact that he's not alone. The question is who is NOT being watched.
In the U.S. originating documents, words like "people", "man", and "mankind" were short-hand for rich land owning white men. They were usually also slave-holders, though that was not required. They were expansive enough to allow rich white male owners of smaller lands without slaves too, though they were in the minority. Widows only counted in that they were married to a rich land owning white man once. Nobody else counted at all. So if you do the proper substitution, to translate to modern terms, it would look more like this:
A government of the rich white dudes, by rich white dudes, for rich white dudes. Everyone else can make me a sammich!
That last bit is obviously not part of the original text, but it's added to clarify "founders intentions."
"I thought it was always normal to negotiate treaties in secret so that the opposing parties can't leverage domestic pressures to use against our own negotiators."
If that is the case, why are they allowing "domestic pressures" from the *IAAs and content Unions??? Allowing pressure only from those with a money interest isn't Democracy, it's Oligarchy.
Good point -- you could almost attribute all of Disney's income ever to public domain. Can we also start adding up all the money we save individually, by avoiding Copyright license fees via "fair use", and little things like quotes and proper attribution? I could probably tally a few $K based on high school reports alone! College papers could put me in the millionaires club.
"exactly how many times do you think the editors for The Register went back to the author of the article, insisting that they must have mixed up Microsoft and China in the story"
This shows you haven't read The [UK] Register before. I think their primary name for Microsoft there is "The Beast of Redmond." They are probably still reveling in the irony, over beers at the pub. They love this kind of story, which is why I'm a fan.
"they're going to spend money fighting for their right to sell an 8 year old or so operating system in China"
They're probably simultaneously lobbying for China to adopt even more ridiculously long Copyright periods than the U.S. So yeah, I could see them fighting over an 8 year old OS easy. Call me in 90 years.
China doesn't have nasty limits on Copyright like "freedom of speech", so they shouldn't have any of those messy limitations like "fair use", or inability to monopolize little things like "math" or "statement of facts". They'll be sending Ballmer a license fee every time he sneezes, if a Chinese citizen copyrights the sound of sneezing first.
You would think Microsoft would start re-thinking their IP law stance, after being THE target for software patent trolls, getting caught using a download tool that violated the GPL, and now this. Some monopolists never learn -- there's always a bigger tyrant than you out there, somewhere, waiting for you to try to treat them like all your other boneheaded customers. Microsoft doesn't have nukes (yet), so they're way out of their league.
"if they listen to their music, they should expect to be paid."
How do I know if a musician is worth paying if I don't hear their music first? Do art collectors routinely collect paintings without seeing them first? Am I the only one who browses books in the book store, or gets them from the library, *before* buying?
Does the real world just sound like echoes to you in there?
"Dont worry everyone give it 15-20 years all these old farts will be dead and hopefully things will be better."
If only they were so uniform. I know some old farts who are tired of these luddite Oligarch bastards ruining everything. My old farts will probably die faster, due to inferior access to health care. In their prime era they were fooled by the same Oligarchs, to think of things like cigarettes and leaded gasoline as perfectly healthy. Gasoline cleans your clothes, dontchaknow! I've got a headache from the fumes, but it's nothing a good smoke wont cure.
This is similar to when the U.S. declared telephone access a "right" via the "Universal Lifeline" direct subscriber tax and subsidy scheme. In a sense, U.S. telco regulation is also still structured around the "right" to 9-1-1 call access.
The main difference seems to be that, in the countries where this Internet access right is being granted, ISPs don't have the same monopolistic stranglehold on the Internet as the U.S. telco market has always had on our communications. In both cases, declaring basic communications access as an equal citizen right makes sense, but only in America can a such "right" unbalance the economy in favor of a few self-chosen monopolists. Instead of solving these equal access problems with Democracy, the U.S. solves everything with "the biggest lobby wins" style Oligarchy.
Genetics boils down to a sequence of a small set of known molecules, forming a small alphabet (GCAT). Any gene old or "new" (I'm unlikely to agree with you on what constitutes new) is just a sequence of these letters, like a long German word. It's a language, so Copyright should apply, not Patents. But since most genetic sequences are taken directly from nature, any such texts are just relating facts, which aren't even subject to Copyright. So the scientists should tell the lawyers to shove it.
Responding to this comment, as the one below seems like a double post...
"first, remove? as in perform massive-scale image editing to untold millions of images, on a much greater and more intrusive scale then blanking Lic# plates (which seems to be a matter of recognizing the shape of strings of numbers) and faces?"
Surprisingly, I think they *are indeed working on it.*
The main problem right now is that these services are very early in evolution, so they usually only have one picture of any one view to go on. Once they have some time and multiple shots per view, they can probably examine multiple shots to figure out what is solid vs. mobile, and eliminate the changed or mobile parts. Further, they are working on 3D mapping technology that plots points in images taken from multiple angles, into 3D coordinate space. They figure out all the corners, create a 3D mesh, and then apply normalized images as textures across the mesh. Then the problem becomes eliminating inconsistent 3D objects from underlying 3D mesh spaces.
Most of this work is in Google Earth R&D experiments, but I'm sure they could enhance Street View with it in the future. With O3D and other 3D web initiatives, the distinction between Google Earth and Google Maps may fade entirely -- it'll all be one big VR simulation of the Earth with pre- or real-time navigation functions, and limitless configurable camera angles. Add animations, and it might even offer real-time traffic simulation, where traffic data is available, and time-of-day and weather based lighting.
"I think everyone would agree here that it appears there is even more music being made now than ever before."
Prior comments show that you are wrong -- there is plenty of disagreement. Appearances can be deceiving -- perhaps there "appears" to be more music because you have more access to it, thanks to technologies like P2P file sharing, which to me is the modern equivalent to radio broadcasting. The RIAA doesn't hate P2P because it's any worse than radio in how it allows "free" distribution -- they just have less control over it, because its an egalitarian peer exchange instead of a top-down broadcast. They can work out payola schemes to control finite radio air time, and they can't do that with infinite P2P.
The word "liberal" has become meaningless now. It has lost all original meaning, and become synonymous with disagreeing with anything Faux Noose tells you to think. If Fox News calls you a "liberal", all that means is that you are sane, and you somehow got their attention.
I like the label "progressives" better, in part because it's less easy to confuse with those dumb Libertarians -- the luddite gold standard panacea idiots. It can also be used to imply one is *progressing* away from old idiotic belief systems, like fundamentalist Christianity. Speaking of, why isn't preaching about hell to little kids considered a form of terrorism? Evangelicals are the original terrorists -- they're just mad the fundi Islamists keep on one-upping them.
On the post: Google For President? If Corporations Are People...
Re: Re: It's speech - not communicate
Look it up."
If you looked it up yourself, you would see another form of speech mentioned there -- "the press", which was the short-hand for the only existing long-distance/multicast medium of the time. The modern equivalent of "the press" is anything you can do on the Internet.
On the post: Google For President? If Corporations Are People...
Re:
On the post: Court Says U Of Southern California Only One Who Can Use USC; Sorry U Of South Carolina
This trademark dispute came up before, between the same schools
This SC interlock logo seems more about the sports promotion side, and UoS-California was first to market with their use. The Gamecocks not only tried a similar interlocking SC pattern on sportswear, but also had similar shades of red on the lettering to the existing TM.
A reminder: Trademark ownership is not based on first to business or even first to use, but only the first registered use in commerce. The game company Insomniac Games won a similar TM scuffle against another game company Insomniac Studios, because Insomniac Games were the first company with a game on the shelves with their "Insomniac" TM on the packaging. Insomniac Studios changed their name before their first release to resolve it. Insomniac is still a dictionary word that anyone can use. The fight here is over branding and use in commerce or promotion, not about who can use the USC abbreviation in other contexts.
On the post: Google For President? If Corporations Are People...
Corporations shouldn't have free speech
Creating a legal entity like a corporation is like creating a immortal robot sociopath with turrets syndrome, and then granting it "personhood", with the exact same rights as self-controlled mortals. We have already seen the consequences of this in their advertising, which have nothing to do with facts or reality (i.e. allergy medication that will allow you to surf on wheat fields). Letting this robot monster loose in the political field will just further the damage they already started.
On the post: Unexpected, But Good: Justice Department Says FCC Should Free Up More Spectrum
Engineers make it work, bureaucrats impede work
It will work when it has to work. It doesn't work now because the spectrum monopolies allow the incumbents to stay lazy, and pervade poorly designed hardware with impunity. As soon as you take away their monopolies, they will have to start innovating again.
These should be required reading when discussing spectrum policy:
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/03/12/spectrum/
http://www.lessig.org/blog/2007/0 2/internet_policy_deregulating_s.html
http://www.openspectrum.info/
The physical facts dictate that all wireless spectrum is composed of electromagnetic waves of varying frequencies, which is another way of saying they are all different colors. The only confusing aspect is that we can't see most of these colors with the naked eye, and some frequencies have properties that allow them to travel differently through air, liquid, and mass. That doesn't change the fact that they are just colors, subject to the same physical laws that make advanced sensing equipment like eyes and cameras work. Confusing one "signal" for another is the same as confusing a red apple with a nearby red firetruck -- the only limitation is the sensing equipment. The FCC has been in the business of granting color monopolies for almost a century, and keeping the sensing equipment as dumb and blind as possible, and is reluctant to give that job up. Hooray to the Justice Department for giving them a kick!
If you don't think the technology is already far enough along yet, you also need to read this:
http://www.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/bio-electronics-0603.html
"The cochlea can perceive a 100-fold range of frequencies -- in humans, from 100 to 10,000 Hz. Sarpeshkar used the same design principles in the RF cochlea to create a device that can perceive signals at million-fold higher frequencies, which includes radio signals for most commercial wireless applications."
This is a "radio" that can process all frequencies on the entire RF range we use now, simultaneously. You could plug it into a sufficiently powerful computer, and process HDTV, Satellite, HD-Audio/AM/FM, WiFi, and cell phone signals (all #G's) on every network, all at the same time, all in software. This is a chip made in a lab, that can be reproduced in mass just like any other chip.
The barriers are all bureaucratic -- none of them are physical nor technological limits. At this point, they're not even economic limits -- they're just stupid limits, that help no one except lazy monopolists.
On the post: The Problem Isn't Middlemen, It's Monopolies
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Richard: +5
+1 for each great and true post so far. Monty Python quotes FTW!
Anti-Mike: -7
-1 for each idiotic attempt at trolling.
Nina Paley: +28
+1 for each comment, because she garnered the reaction, whatever the nature.
You lose Anti-Mike, in more ways than I can count.
On the post: Could You Prove That The Government Was Watching You Illegally?
Re: Re: Of course you are being watched! This is news?
Of course I have something to hide! Credit card numbers, account balances, health history, favorite TV shows that I'm embarrassed about, half of what I did in college, that one paper on feminism, what I *really* think about George Bush....
Can you honestly tell me that you want a government who can't even keep a secret watch list *really secret at all* to have access to all your data? As if it wont instantly leak to criminals no matter how "secret" they think they're keeping it? More of that data is probably put to use by the Mob insiders than the Fed. Do you want the Mafia (name your favorite) to have all your conversations on record?
On the post: Comparing File Sharing To Payola: Could Have Had That Promotion For Free
Monopoly begets more monopolies
On the post: Could You Prove That The Government Was Watching You Illegally?
Of course you are being watched! This is news?
If you use a phone, or send anything over the Internet in plain-text, the government has full access to that data. The only question is what "keywords" they're using in their sweeping searches on all that data, and they'll never tell us that.
The main problem with this guy isn't any tin foil hats -- it's the fact that he's not alone. The question is who is NOT being watched.
On the post: No, ACTA Secrecy Is Not 'Normal' -- Nor Is It A 'Distraction'
Re:
A government of the rich white dudes, by rich white dudes, for rich white dudes. Everyone else can make me a sammich!
That last bit is obviously not part of the original text, but it's added to clarify "founders intentions."
On the post: No, ACTA Secrecy Is Not 'Normal' -- Nor Is It A 'Distraction'
Re:
If that is the case, why are they allowing "domestic pressures" from the *IAAs and content Unions??? Allowing pressure only from those with a money interest isn't Democracy, it's Oligarchy.
On the post: We See Your 'Copyright Contributes $1.5 Trillion' And Raise You 'Fair Use Contributes $2.2 Trillion'
Re:
On the post: China Says Microsoft Violates IP With Windows, Bars Sales
Re: Chinese IP
This shows you haven't read The [UK] Register before. I think their primary name for Microsoft there is "The Beast of Redmond." They are probably still reveling in the irony, over beers at the pub. They love this kind of story, which is why I'm a fan.
"they're going to spend money fighting for their right to sell an 8 year old or so operating system in China"
They're probably simultaneously lobbying for China to adopt even more ridiculously long Copyright periods than the U.S. So yeah, I could see them fighting over an 8 year old OS easy. Call me in 90 years.
China doesn't have nasty limits on Copyright like "freedom of speech", so they shouldn't have any of those messy limitations like "fair use", or inability to monopolize little things like "math" or "statement of facts". They'll be sending Ballmer a license fee every time he sneezes, if a Chinese citizen copyrights the sound of sneezing first.
You would think Microsoft would start re-thinking their IP law stance, after being THE target for software patent trolls, getting caught using a download tool that violated the GPL, and now this. Some monopolists never learn -- there's always a bigger tyrant than you out there, somewhere, waiting for you to try to treat them like all your other boneheaded customers. Microsoft doesn't have nukes (yet), so they're way out of their league.
On the post: Just Because People Say They'll Pay For Something, It Doesn't Mean They Will
Re:
How do I know if a musician is worth paying if I don't hear their music first? Do art collectors routinely collect paintings without seeing them first? Am I the only one who browses books in the book store, or gets them from the library, *before* buying?
Does the real world just sound like echoes to you in there?
On the post: Just Because People Say They'll Pay For Something, It Doesn't Mean They Will
Re: o.O
If only they were so uniform. I know some old farts who are tired of these luddite Oligarch bastards ruining everything. My old farts will probably die faster, due to inferior access to health care. In their prime era they were fooled by the same Oligarchs, to think of things like cigarettes and leaded gasoline as perfectly healthy. Gasoline cleans your clothes, dontchaknow! I've got a headache from the fumes, but it's nothing a good smoke wont cure.
On the post: Spain Says Broadband Is A Basic Right
Universal Lifeline
The main difference seems to be that, in the countries where this Internet access right is being granted, ISPs don't have the same monopolistic stranglehold on the Internet as the U.S. telco market has always had on our communications. In both cases, declaring basic communications access as an equal citizen right makes sense, but only in America can a such "right" unbalance the economy in favor of a few self-chosen monopolists. Instead of solving these equal access problems with Democracy, the U.S. solves everything with "the biggest lobby wins" style Oligarchy.
On the post: Australian Patent Lawyers Claim Patenting Genes Is Necessary For Biomedical Research
Shouldn't genetic sequences fall under Copyright?
On the post: Switzerland Continues To Fight Google Street View; Takes Google To Court
Re: Re: "i dont understand why.."
"first, remove? as in perform massive-scale image editing to untold millions of images, on a much greater and more intrusive scale then blanking Lic# plates (which seems to be a matter of recognizing the shape of strings of numbers) and faces?"
Surprisingly, I think they *are indeed working on it.*
The main problem right now is that these services are very early in evolution, so they usually only have one picture of any one view to go on. Once they have some time and multiple shots per view, they can probably examine multiple shots to figure out what is solid vs. mobile, and eliminate the changed or mobile parts. Further, they are working on 3D mapping technology that plots points in images taken from multiple angles, into 3D coordinate space. They figure out all the corners, create a 3D mesh, and then apply normalized images as textures across the mesh. Then the problem becomes eliminating inconsistent 3D objects from underlying 3D mesh spaces.
Most of this work is in Google Earth R&D experiments, but I'm sure they could enhance Street View with it in the future. With O3D and other 3D web initiatives, the distinction between Google Earth and Google Maps may fade entirely -- it'll all be one big VR simulation of the Earth with pre- or real-time navigation functions, and limitless configurable camera angles. Add animations, and it might even offer real-time traffic simulation, where traffic data is available, and time-of-day and weather based lighting.
On the post: New Economics Paper Explains How Shorter Copyright Stimulates More Music
Re: Re: You can't legislate or bribe creativity
Prior comments show that you are wrong -- there is plenty of disagreement. Appearances can be deceiving -- perhaps there "appears" to be more music because you have more access to it, thanks to technologies like P2P file sharing, which to me is the modern equivalent to radio broadcasting. The RIAA doesn't hate P2P because it's any worse than radio in how it allows "free" distribution -- they just have less control over it, because its an egalitarian peer exchange instead of a top-down broadcast. They can work out payola schemes to control finite radio air time, and they can't do that with infinite P2P.
On the post: Fox News Tries Selective DMCA Takedowns: If Liberal Bloggers Use It, Take It Down
"Liberal" has become meaningless
I like the label "progressives" better, in part because it's less easy to confuse with those dumb Libertarians -- the luddite gold standard panacea idiots. It can also be used to imply one is *progressing* away from old idiotic belief systems, like fundamentalist Christianity. Speaking of, why isn't preaching about hell to little kids considered a form of terrorism? Evangelicals are the original terrorists -- they're just mad the fundi Islamists keep on one-upping them.
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