After The Breakup, it was said by many that AT&T wouldn't know how to sell a cure for cancer. Too many of the execs are still of the old-school monopoly mindset and assume "lock-in loyalty" on the part of their customers. You'd think 30+ years later with landline service nearly dead, mobile customers jumping between carriers based on who provides the best deal this month, and cord-cutting hitting the inflection point that they might actually try competing on service and quality.
Naaah, let's squeeze the suckers to pay for thicker gold-plating on those exec's parachutes...
In the NBA case, this was an team 'employee' using their public position to advertise their opinion, and the employer then choosing to placate an offended group of customers despite its stated posture of supporting US free-speech values.
In the Blizzard case, it was leveraging a "don't offend others" clause no doubt way down in the EULA against one customer against another customer-group, again in spite of US conventions and triggering a counter-response supporting the original poster. It's about impossible to make an utterly neutral statement that doesn't push someone's buttons, somewhere, so this is a much more questionable move, and may backfire on them to some degree.
The point of net neutrality isn't QoS, which the prior rules specifically allowed for.
The point is that startup site XYZ should have no more barriers to customer access than Netflix/FB/Google/etc . If XYZ can buy the bandwidth to get their content onto the Net, they should have as much access to customers as the Big Four. This is the basic disruptive nature of the 'Net. The latter being able to 'pay the Danegeld' to various ISPs in order to reach those customers at full speed is *LITERAL* rent-seeking behavior that the NN rules were meant to prevent.
This is the ISPs picking market winners based on their ability to pay for prioritized access to those customer bases, and is completely anti-competitive. For all the conservatives' trumpeting about free markets, this is anything but, and their failure to acknowledge as much brands them for what they really are.
SImple math: you get vaccinated once as a kid, maybe a booster as a teen. Pharma's not making any big money on that; consider the chronic medications like insulin, blood thinners, cholesterol meds etc that you have to take EVERY FREAKIN' DAY, there's the vector for price gouging.
Yes, some people have bad reactions to vaccines, the percentage is exceptionally small. The benefit to society in general greatly outweighs this. The anti-vaxxers touting how few people die of the classic childhood diseases don't count in the much more frequent (but still slight) neurological problems, blindness, male sterility from mumps, etc etc. Dodging the question by focusing only on the worst possible outcome frankly proves the moral bankruptcy of their position.
Having young grandkids, I notice that now the House of Mouse is offering "classic Mickey" merch, very likely intended to refresh the copyright on the early renditions of the characters from the "Steamboat Willy" days
Copyright infringements are a *CIVIL* matter; why is the FBI supposed to treat it as a *CRIMINAL* offense other than the baksheesh (go look it up...) provided by the entertainment industry to our elected officials?
Shouldn't law enforcement be after more important crimes like, say, terrorism, drugs, etc than worrying about somebody copying a freakin' CD?
1. The success of streaming services, both music & video 2. The growing success of small bands touring, keeping in touch with fanbases via social media and able to sell CDs at their performances (caught 50th anniversary of Tannahill Weavers thanks to FB posts...) 3. The broad number of self-produced videos on YouTube/Vimeo/... 4. The success of small artists funding themselves by Patreon subscription.
Yup, I call bullshit.
Primarily this is impacting the execs who are finding their gatekeeper role being made irrelevant by the swarm of alternate distribution mechanisms the 'Net is providing. "and nothing of value was lost..."
The character was from an alternate reality where Gwen got bitten by the radioactive spider instead of Peter Parker (and Peter ends up dying later on instead of her). She was merged over to the main Marvel universe later on, and since they already had a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Woman_(Jessica_Drew)] (Spider-Woman) character there, they've relabeled her as Ghost Spider.
The new owners are Szakaly's daughter/son-in-law... I would guess this is a move to avoid the blowback from the bad publicity around this case while keeping the property "in the family".
There's a couple of their stores in my area; mostly they're selling cheap t-shirts, closeout toys/videos/game disks/books, phone accessories (cases/screen guards/charging cables), and by the checkout there's a wire rack for candy & a cooler for ice cream sandwiches/cones. You'd miss it if you weren't looking for it.
Going after these guys for infringement is way beyond the pale.
"Actually Fox News went to Florida State Supreme Court and fought this out. They were sued on the basis of telling falsehoods and won on the First Amendment Grounds, that they are not required to tell the truth."
As has been proposed in many places, most prominently at the much-missed Groklaw site, SCO was a niche player, found its Sys-V UNIX lunch being eaten by Linux, and after its deal with IBM to develop for Itanium went down with that ship, launched a pay-us-to-go-away suit against Big Blue for scuttling the development deal (let's not talk about the shenanigans about selling the company & misreading the original USL deal with Novell in the 90s).
As anyone with three active neurons could tell you, filing a frivolous suit against IBM claiming infringement, when a goodly part of their business relies on running Other Companies' Computers, is unlikely to go well, and it didn't.
They pretty clearly got some funding from a Microsoft proxy which I suppose was well-spent by showing the total lack of any code infringement by Linux & cementing its place as The Other OS for server rooms.
Yes, since Shiva's insisted on that all-caps EMAIL when talking about his teenage work for UMDNJ, he did invent whatever algorithms used in that particular program.
That said, do those algorithms comply with any of the IETF standards of the time? My understanding is they do not (I'm quite willing to be shown otherwise). That said, his work is an interesting effort for a teenager in the late 70s/early 80s, but has *NO* impact to the current landscape for electronic mail communications, where the IETF standards for interoperation apply.
On those days I work from home (for A Large US Bank), I connect via a VPN client. Are you telling me I'm breaking the law doing that? Or are you simply an uninformed git?
Why Mr. Steele, how nice of you to join the conversation :-).
Any particular reason we should feel sorry for someone that deliberately posts porn online then trolls the downloaders for infringement settlements to 'protect' them from the embarassment of a court case? The docs at this point seem to make it clear that the downloaded materials in question were in fact *uploaded by Prenda* and/or its associated shell companies. IANAL, but I believe this would be termed entrapment were it done by the authorities.
Given the above and the dubious explanations provided by Steele &c, pardon us for not feeling too upset about his current butthurt.
On the post: How Years Of Copyright Maximalism Is Now Killing Pop Music
Re: Re: Re: Re: The History of Music
On the post: Turns Out Oracle Copied Amazon's S3 APIs; When Confronted, Pretends That's Different (Spoiler Alert: It's Not)
Re: Threading the needle
On the post: AT&T Jacks Up TV Prices Post Merger After Repeatedly Claiming That Wouldn't Happen
Typ. AT&T marketing
On the post: Thin-Skinned Chinese Government Busy Making American Sports Orgs Look Silly On Free Speech Issues
Re:
On the post: Ajit Pai, Telecom Lobbyists Are Now Coordinating Their Lies In Perfect Symmetry
Re: inconsistent
On the post: Pinterest's Way Of Dealing With Anti-Vax Nonsense And Scams Is Only Possible Because Of Section 230
Re: Re: Freedom to choose
SImple math: you get vaccinated once as a kid, maybe a booster as a teen. Pharma's not making any big money on that; consider the chronic medications like insulin, blood thinners, cholesterol meds etc that you have to take EVERY FREAKIN' DAY, there's the vector for price gouging.
Yes, some people have bad reactions to vaccines, the percentage is exceptionally small. The benefit to society in general greatly outweighs this. The anti-vaxxers touting how few people die of the classic childhood diseases don't count in the much more frequent (but still slight) neurological problems, blindness, male sterility from mumps, etc etc. Dodging the question by focusing only on the worst possible outcome frankly proves the moral bankruptcy of their position.
On the post: THE Ohio State University Applies For THE Stupidest Trademark In THE World
absurdity
I'm an OSU alumni, and love my alma mater, but this is freakin' ridiculous, and I hope it gets justly shot down by USPTO.
On the post: Conan Doyle Estate Asks Supreme Court To Step In And Block Sherlock Holmes From Being Public Domain'd
Re: Disney
On the post: While Everyone's Busy, Hollywood & Record Labels Suggest Congress Bring Back SOPA
Re: Re: Thank God for Midterms...
Shouldn't law enforcement be after more important crimes like, say, terrorism, drugs, etc than worrying about somebody copying a freakin' CD?
On the post: While Everyone's Busy, Hollywood & Record Labels Suggest Congress Bring Back SOPA
Re: Re:
"Hollywood accounting" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting) is a known fallacy meant to centralize money to the studios involved.
The actual impact is somewhere behind minor farm crops...
Back up your claims or please STFU.
On the post: While Everyone's Busy, Hollywood & Record Labels Suggest Congress Bring Back SOPA
Re: Re: Won't go away until pirates are defeated.
1. The success of streaming services, both music & video
2. The growing success of small bands touring, keeping in touch with fanbases via social media and able to sell CDs at their performances (caught 50th anniversary of Tannahill Weavers thanks to FB posts...)
3. The broad number of self-produced videos on YouTube/Vimeo/...
4. The success of small artists funding themselves by Patreon subscription.
Yup, I call bullshit.
Primarily this is impacting the execs who are finding their gatekeeper role being made irrelevant by the swarm of alternate distribution mechanisms the 'Net is providing. "and nothing of value was lost..."
On the post: For Some Reason, BMW Is Asking For More Time To Oppose The Latest Gwen Stacey Character Trademark
Re: nitpick
The character was from an alternate reality where Gwen got bitten by the radioactive spider instead of Peter Parker (and Peter ends up dying later on instead of her). She was merged over to the main Marvel universe later on, and since they already had a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Woman_(Jessica_Drew)] (Spider-Woman) character there, they've relabeled her as Ghost Spider.
On the post: Hotel That Charged Guest $350 For A Negative Review Now Facing A Lawsuit From State Attorney General
Re: Re:
On the post: Five Below, Trendy Retailer, Sues 10 Below, Ice Cream Seller, For Trademark Infringement
the we-sell-food-too argument
Going after these guys for infringement is way beyond the pale.
On the post: Trump May Not Be Serious About His NBC Threats... But He May Have Violated The First Amendment
Re: Re: NBC is not a "private person",
Not quite the case:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/foxlies.asp
Two newscasters from the Tampa Fox affiliate sued as whistleblowers over a story carried there, nothing involved the network itself.
On the post: Oracle Tells The White House: Stop Hiring Silicon Valley People & Ditch Open Source
Re: Not this again
As anyone with three active neurons could tell you, filing a frivolous suit against IBM claiming infringement, when a goodly part of their business relies on running Other Companies' Computers, is unlikely to go well, and it didn't.
They pretty clearly got some funding from a Microsoft proxy which I suppose was well-spent by showing the total lack of any code infringement by Linux & cementing its place as The Other OS for server rooms.
On the post: First Hearing In The Lawsuit Against Us, Along With Even More Filings
Re: Re: "EMAIL algorithm"
That said, do those algorithms comply with any of the IETF standards of the time? My understanding is they do not (I'm quite willing to be shown otherwise). That said, his work is an interesting effort for a teenager in the late 70s/early 80s, but has *NO* impact to the current landscape for electronic mail communications, where the IETF standards for interoperation apply.
On the post: Revealed: ISPs Already Violating Net Neutrality To Block Encryption And Make Everyone Less Safe Online
Re:
On the post: Prenda Loses Big Again; Court Orders It To Pay Back Settlement Money, Refers To Law Enforcement
Re:
Any particular reason we should feel sorry for someone that deliberately posts porn online then trolls the downloaders for infringement settlements to 'protect' them from the embarassment of a court case? The docs at this point seem to make it clear that the downloaded materials in question were in fact *uploaded by Prenda* and/or its associated shell companies. IANAL, but I believe this would be termed entrapment were it done by the authorities.
Given the above and the dubious explanations provided by Steele &c, pardon us for not feeling too upset about his current butthurt.
On the post: The Insanity Of Making A 'Wizard Of Oz' Film In Today's IP Climate
Re:
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