They tried to do this licensing crap where I used to live in Belleville, IL. It was sparked by the telco complaining that people were using nails for yardsale signs instead of tape. The psycho money-grubbing administration decided to require everyone to license their yard sales, rather than just ask people to use tape.
The law was struck down the following year.
Too bad for these girls, their community isn't as anti-regulation as ours was.
Seems more like a test run with a case they really don't care about, so they can really nail people they do care about. (i.e. Ananomous, Lulzsec, Wikileaks)
MIT and LSTOR both asked for charges to be dropped, so any convictions are just gravy to the prosecution.
We'll know for sure if they rush this through the courts.
It's not illegal to take vids of people without their knowledge if you own the computer with the webcam? Hmm, handing out netbooks and gyms and strip clubs could become lucrative. Just so long as the women are only "borrowing" them...
Yeah, they way he made up an excuse to start a massively expesive and unfinanced war in the Middle East.
Thirty years? Hard left? That's a picture of you smoking a reefer, right? Jeeze, Obama annoys me, too, but find valid criticisms. (like flip-floping on lobbyists, less transparancy, coming down harder on dissenters/whistleblowers, cow-towing to industry and Hollywood, etc.)
That's a lie. It didn't suck then. It sucks now.
They redesigned the site, making it hard to find your current friends, but easy to invite new ones.
They also gave everyone instant messaging by default, and made you just ignore people if you don't like IM.
They also gave game developers an API to allow your friends to annoy you with stupid game messages to the point that you really have to question the value of friends to begin with.
I found a bunch of "lost" friends on facebook... and oddly enough, they're hardly ever on facebook.
Myspace lost because there was too much fluff all over the place. Very few people want to automatically hear your favorite songs and see your favorite vids, and if they do, they know how to click a link. Facebook figured that out, but they put all the links on the main page. Fail!
When I get on Google+, hopefully they will have even less fluff, and let me chop out what's there.
Ya got it all wrong, the patents foster innovation. After all, how do you know who invented something? You just go and check who got the patent, and that's who invented it. Naw, the European market is gonna be stale, no new code, ya understand? No patents, no reason fer new stuff. Now git with the funny TSA groper stories, will ya?
Then obviously this law was not enough. The sneakernet's obviously too entrenched, and they'll have to ban portable hard drives and thumb drives over 2meg. (Most mp3's are > 3 meg)
If this fails, then they will have had time to develop the "Pay per Play" implatable chip which detects any music or soundtrack you listen to and deducts payments from your bank account accordingly. It will be powered by brain waves, which will make it useless to implant in any member of Congress or the White House, as well as most judges.
Dude, Lovecraft is far more popular than you realize. His mythos was part of the original Deities and Demigods AD&D book, and Chaosium has an entire role playing game devoted to it. He has a very dedicated cult following, so I'd say it's worth a shot.
This article tells all. The fact that a Microsoft lawyer is commenting on the technical details of a botnet tells you all you need to know: Microsoft is now run by lawyers. If anyone technical was involved, they'd be telling this guy to stick to his field, or at least quote someone who knows who is technical.
I guess I can start giving legal advice now, since turn-about is fair play...
Sorta. What they should be saying is, "Everything from the book is public domain. Everything with an expired copyright is public domain. But anything added from the movie is copyrighted." maybe that's what they are trying to say, but failing.
I don't see a problem with this from a macro level, but if we start talking, "the new scarecrow squinted like movie scarecrow, and wiggled his hips the same way" I think it's gone too far. Plot elements, scenes depicted only in the movie, yes. Body language, no.
All of those companies have already been investigated, and probably will be again. Success breeds regulation.
However, I hope Microsoft is severely sanctioned for it's non-competitive practice of pushing license agreements on every manufacturer who uses Android, while being unwilling to tell what patents are being "infringed". This is extremely unethical, regardless of it's legality.
Something smells about this case. Like the judge that said that running a different program on a computer makes it a different machine, thereby giving legitimacy to software patents. Smells like the same stupidity all over again.
No, the reason that knockoffs are sometimes low quality is because the producer is out to maximize profits, and don't have a reputation to uphold. IP doesn't enter in to the picture.
And if someone can reverse engineer your product, and make another product which sells better than yours, you shouldn't be in business. Or, you can sell your ideas to other companies who can actually market their products. If your whole deal is to live off of the fruits of one or two ideas for the rest of your life, you don't deserve anything. America used to have a work ethic. If you're not working, you don't deserve anything.
Patents are an artificial means to stifle competition at the expense of consumers, period. Software patents are the worst, both because they have no physical component and because they are not remotely legislated correctly. Software patents should be source code, if you are even going to entertain the thought of them. The reviewers are totally unfamiliar with technology, so they cannot tell a novel implementation from a textbook snippet 20 years old.
No, there is no upside to patents for humanity. They are just for lazy people.
This is the real reason why they have region codes. The industry recognizes that the incomes are far apart in different areas of the world, and would like to adjust them accordingly. However, if people in Mexico can buy a truckload and sell them in the US at a 300% profit, they will. They still try to a certain degree, which is why there are region codes on 45-year-old movies.
Having said that, it should be obvious to everyone that the studios will make money even if they sell the shiney disks for $.75 US. They are really just doing everything they can to "maximize profits", and until the people of the world decide that businesses have responsibilities beyond profits, we can expect more of the same.
I was just trying to find some info on this. Japan's economy has been dead since about '87, and their IP laws are even more insane than the US. The US has been in the crapper since before 9/11/2001 (the icing on the cake), and we had new IP laws go into effect in '98. The Indian legislature recently began putting stronger IP laws into effect as well, and I haven't heard anything good about the economic outcome there, either. I would really love to see a graph of IP legislation vs GNP growth for all countries over the last 50 years or so.
On the post: Acacia Buys Up More Smartphone Apps Patents: Watch The Patent Thicket Get Worse
Re: Re: The chart leaves out . . .
On the post: Anheuser-Busch Trying To Trademark Area Codes For Local Beers
Re:
You can probably get it past the USPTO, but it won't hold in court.
It's a 586! It's a Pentium! It's a 586! It's a Pentium!
On the post: Once Again, Law Enforcement Protects Us From The America-Destroying Scourge Of Children With Lemonade Stands
In my hometown...
The law was struck down the following year.
Too bad for these girls, their community isn't as anti-regulation as ours was.
On the post: You Know What's Missing From The Aaron Swartz Indictment? Any Mention Of Copyright
Test Run
MIT and LSTOR both asked for charges to be dropped, so any convictions are just gravy to the prosecution.
We'll know for sure if they rush this through the courts.
On the post: Feds Charge Aaron Swartz With Felony Hacking... For Downloading A Ton Of Academic Research
Re: Re:
On the post: Court Refuses To Issue Injunction Stopping Secret Web Spycams From Running On Rental Laptops
The mind boggles...
On the post: New York City Freedom Of Information Requests Fail Miserably
Re: Re: Re:
Thirty years? Hard left? That's a picture of you smoking a reefer, right? Jeeze, Obama annoys me, too, but find valid criticisms. (like flip-floping on lobbyists, less transparancy, coming down harder on dissenters/whistleblowers, cow-towing to industry and Hollywood, etc.)
On the post: Facebook Bans User's Ad Campaigns For Displaying Google+ Ad
Re: Re: Re: Zuckerberg...
They redesigned the site, making it hard to find your current friends, but easy to invite new ones.
They also gave everyone instant messaging by default, and made you just ignore people if you don't like IM.
They also gave game developers an API to allow your friends to annoy you with stupid game messages to the point that you really have to question the value of friends to begin with.
I found a bunch of "lost" friends on facebook... and oddly enough, they're hardly ever on facebook.
Myspace lost because there was too much fluff all over the place. Very few people want to automatically hear your favorite songs and see your favorite vids, and if they do, they know how to click a link. Facebook figured that out, but they put all the links on the main page. Fail!
When I get on Google+, hopefully they will have even less fluff, and let me chop out what's there.
On the post: App Developers Dropping Out Of US Out Of Fears Over Patent Lawsuits
Naw...
On the post: Who Do You Trust On Whether Or Not PROTECT IP Will Break The Internet? The Guys Who Built It... Or The MPAA?
Re: So....
If this fails, then they will have had time to develop the "Pay per Play" implatable chip which detects any music or soundtrack you listen to and deducts payments from your bank account accordingly. It will be powered by brain waves, which will make it useless to implant in any member of Congress or the White House, as well as most judges.
On the post: The Confusing Case Of Lovecraft's Copyrights
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Congress Condemns Belarus For Doing A Bunch Of Things It Wants To Do
Re: U.S. - Lords of Creation
They may be laughing behind our back, but until they do it to our face, no one will care.
Damn. Too cynical in my old age.
On the post: Patents As Theft: How Oracle & Microsoft Seek To Profit From Android Despite Having Nothing To Do With It
Re:
I guess I can start giving legal advice now, since turn-about is fair play...
On the post: Wizard Of Oz Court Ruling Suggests Moviemakers Can Reclaim Parts Of The Public Domain And Put It Under Copyright
Re: Non-Original Sin
I don't see a problem with this from a macro level, but if we start talking, "the new scarecrow squinted like movie scarecrow, and wiggled his hips the same way" I think it's gone too far. Plot elements, scenes depicted only in the movie, yes. Body language, no.
On the post: US Airways Employee Handles Complaining Passenger The 'TSA Way'
The only way to get the TSA out is to hit the industries in the pocketbook.
On the post: Social Networking Wars 2011: Everyone Cutting Off Everyone Else
Re:
However, I hope Microsoft is severely sanctioned for it's non-competitive practice of pushing license agreements on every manufacturer who uses Android, while being unwilling to tell what patents are being "infringed". This is extremely unethical, regardless of it's legality.
On the post: Judge Who Doesn't Understand Technology Says WiFi Is Not A Radio Communication
Stinky...
On the post: Nortel Patents Sold For $4.5 Billion To Apple, EMC, Microsoft, RIM, Ericsson & Sony
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Rip Off
And if someone can reverse engineer your product, and make another product which sells better than yours, you shouldn't be in business. Or, you can sell your ideas to other companies who can actually market their products. If your whole deal is to live off of the fruits of one or two ideas for the rest of your life, you don't deserve anything. America used to have a work ethic. If you're not working, you don't deserve anything.
Patents are an artificial means to stifle competition at the expense of consumers, period. Software patents are the worst, both because they have no physical component and because they are not remotely legislated correctly. Software patents should be source code, if you are even going to entertain the thought of them. The reviewers are totally unfamiliar with technology, so they cannot tell a novel implementation from a textbook snippet 20 years old.
No, there is no upside to patents for humanity. They are just for lazy people.
On the post: Why Piracy Happens: Because No One In Mexico Thinks Tron Legacy Is Worth Paying $136
DVD region codes
Having said that, it should be obvious to everyone that the studios will make money even if they sell the shiney disks for $.75 US. They are really just doing everything they can to "maximize profits", and until the people of the world decide that businesses have responsibilities beyond profits, we can expect more of the same.
On the post: Nortel Patents Sold For $4.5 Billion To Apple, EMC, Microsoft, RIM, Ericsson & Sony
Re:
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