Wikipedia says "Personal Audio LLC is a Beaumont, Texas-based company that enforces and earns licensing revenue from five patents."
It takes money to get a patent approved, somtimes hundreds of thousands of dollars, or to buy a patent from someone who already had it approved.
Then comes the business - shaking down those "using" the patent who haven't "licensed" its use.
The PURPOSE of patents was to allow people to SHARE their cool invention so others could MAKE USE of it, paying some NOMINAL fee, and not have to re-invent the wheel, so to speak.
The result of decades of pandering to the "Intellectual Property" barons (including the copyright ones, the 'anti-piracy' ones, the 'trademark infringement' kind) is that now we have a government provided monopoly on EXTORTING THE ECONOMY.
You've said before there are so many laws on the books, we're all guilty of something at some time. I suspect that there are so many patents that we are all in violation of one or more of them at one time.
Last time I do anything off of Lifehacker... don't want to be in violation!
Re: Re: Re: Re: US Corporations and their objectives
1. There is no law requiring any corporation to make a profit, seek to make a profit, or seek to improve the value of their securities.
2. If a corporation has told its shareholders (through either their Articles or their annual 10K filings or the quarterly 10Q filings or other SEC filings) that it intends to do so THEN and ONLY THEN is it the fiduciary duty of management to adhere to those goals... that THEY THEMSELVES SET OUT in order to encourage investors. If they fail, CIVIL lawsuits ensue. (No pun intended).
3. "[w]hy should we not impose"... because YOU are NOT someone who gets to impose ANYTHING on ANYONE and neither am I. Corporations have specific goals and so long as they are operating within the law we don't get to tell them what to do.
Arguendo you may say "But they have to follow laws and we can pass laws that make them do these other things" and then they'll go incorporate in other countries that don't have your absurd ideas of forcing businesses to do what YOU want vs what THEY want.
Banks are not required to have community investment. I don't know where your ideas are coming from, but they are not United States corporate law. That's for sure.
Ehud CEO - several US corporations CTO - several US corporations (formerly one public) Manager - several US LLCs Helicopter Pilot Extraordinaire (FAA CPL-H)
Perhaps I was too subtle and the point was missed.
THERE IS NO SUCH LAW.
Public corporations exist to further outside investors, and as I explained they do this via growth or profit. It has nothing to do wiht a law, nor greed, nor anti-communism, nor anything else you've espoused. It's simply to attract investment money over the next security.
I had a lengthy reply but it's been "awaiting moderation" for a day now with no release. I'll try and recap the salient points.
There are no laws requiring profit or growth. Corporations that want outside investment on the open market CHOOSE to emphasize those in their Articles of Incorporation (AOI), to go have an initial public offering (IPO), and to publicly trade. When they do that, they provide incentives for investors to buy and hold the shares ("long position") through continued growth (share value goes up) or profit and distribution (dividends).
Nothing in the law requires this. Corporations exist that do not emphasize this. Typically they are non-public. Some are for profit and some are not for profit. (Not for profit doesn't mean they don't make a profit... merely that they reinvest it back into the corporation).
Amazon and Google are public corporations. If you don't like their corporate goals or their data sharing models, find private corporations (Open Whisper Systems? Lavabit? etc.) and use their services.
United States incorporated entities ("corporations") have documents that detail their purpose, their scope, their organizational details, and management and oversight. Typically in a typical US corporation you'd find these in the Articles of Incorporation (AOI) which are -- in many states -- even found online.
A US Corporation isn't required to focus on GROWTH, PROFIT, REVENUE, or even HELPING THE WORLD. It is whatever its incorporators decided when they created it. Similarly, INVESTORS are not required to invest in any instrument (stocks, bonds, etc.) unless they feel the instrument will reward them in some way.
Put together, corporations that seek outside funding and stockholders often provide revenue forecasts and share revenue (dividends) or provide growth forecasts so that the market will drive share value (and price) up. Either way the investors are rewarded and they will invest.
Some corporations don't want these investors. They are typically also not going to go for an initial public offering (IPO) or list themselves on a major exchange (e.g. NASDAQ, AMSE, FOREX, etc.) because the traffic in their securities will be miniscule compared to the high-moving stocks with great dividends or growth.
So to say that this is a problem with US law is wrong. To say that this is a requirement of nonsocialism is wrong. It's merely looking a a microcosm (PUBLIC corporations and their investors) and analogize the rest to it.
Now back to the original question... we know both Google and Amazon are publicly traded, and yes, their investors want growth and profit. If you want to use services of companies that aren't thus limited my I recommend you check out Whisper Systems (they make Signal), and of course the now-defunct Lavabit. There are PLENTY of non-public corporations whose goals are NOT profit and growth but rather providing a service and not screwing their customers.
Signal did not "set" their IP address to be Google's, nor did they form TCP connections using Google addresses or any addreses other than their own.
When trying to explain things, analogies help take something we don't understand and put it in terms we do understand. In this case it took things you didn't understand and put it in terms that were not correct.
It's not like finding an undocumented API. Nothing here was undocumented and they weren't taking advantage of someone's having left open something that should have been closed.
Here's a more apt analogy: They discovered they can use the heavily discounted smart TV for a PC monitor and all that resolution and high refresh rate is a lot cheaper than a normal "monitor only" solution! In response the smart TV vendor says "No no no, we sold you this set at a discount so we can track your viewng behavior and make money on you in other ways. No more using it as a dumb monitor."
There's no violation of terms or of using undocumented features, and nobody "piggy back on a hack" as there's no hack. I think it's disingenuous to suggest it's disingenuous to call out Amazon as that is EXACTLY the right thing to do.
There are two major ways to block unwanted traffic in authoritarian countries that control their infrastructure: 1. Block IPv4 address(es) or ranges of addresses and disallow your users to reach those "unwanted" servers providing those "harmful" services. 2. Enable deep packet inspection (DPI), forged certificates, decrypt everything having performed a man in the middle (MITM) attack, and remove traffic you don't like.
The former is easy and is why it's the preferred option. Domain fronting doesn't making this difficult... it makes it impossible to identify "harmful" traffic from "all of e.g. google cloud" in real time if at all.
Google and Amazon are wrong to do this, and it is their right to do so, but it shows short-sightedness to do so absent any overarching reason for it.
Signal, WhatsApp, etc. should re-engineer their protocols to not be dependent on ONE provider, ONE cloud, or even ONE identifiable communication "stream". They can learn a lot from TOR, from spread spectrum, from anycast IP addresses, and lastly from thepiratebay.org and remain vibrant, reachable, and well from all countries.
Not at all. We're not discussing the EULA because no licenses were sold, transferred, etc.
Simply put, if you can download an ISO and burn it to a CD that in and of itself is not a violation of US copyright law (yet!). If, however, you attempt to use it you require a license, and THAT is where an EULA would possibly come into effect given a lot of other (not relevant to this discussion) factors.
1. Download an ISO available to anyone without an EULA or an "I agree". 2. Burn said ISO to hard media. 3. You're not a pirate. Have a Coke and a smile.
I hope you're being sarcastic, because nothing you said* is true as per US law.
E
* Technically your sentence start "...don't forget..." can be true because you're just telling someone to remember something... but the thing you tell them to remember is, again, not in accordance with US law.
Note: I am not a lawyer, but I have been investigated for UPL. I'm not an idiot, but nobody's investigated me for that. The FBI wanted to know about my techdirt posts, so now I have to watch what I saw. All this is true, unlike the comments in the above post.
His illiterate letter talks about a "steady income", something I'm sure anyone who spent $84,000 to stamp some CDs would love to have.
It doesn't say "profit", "massive profit", "arrrr ya maties" or anything of that nature.
Lots of people choose to convert a fixed asset into an income. In the business world we call it "moving from the balance sheet to the P&L." You might think of it as "buying a house and renting it out."
He bought an $84,000 house and hoped to collect rent for a long long time. Perhaps in time there would be profit, but certainly at this point not so.
Microsoft is dissembling and prevaricating when they "suggest" that they lost any revenue, as they give the contents of these CDs for free. All he did was go from .ISO file to stamped CDs. His "crime" appears to be that he duplicated labels on the CDs that were not honest.
For that he will spend over a year in jail.
I sure am glad the last time I put a family portrait on the DVD label of the family reunion pics the guy who took the pics didn't Naruto me for copyright infringement. I'd be in prison now.
Justice. The wheels grind. They grind slowly. Sometimes they turn good people into ground beef. (h/t KW for the original comment, although I broke it up.)
On the post: It's Over: The Podcast Patent Troll's Patent is Officially And Completely Dead
Reward the shareholders
It takes money to get a patent approved, somtimes hundreds of thousands of dollars, or to buy a patent from someone who already had it approved.
Then comes the business - shaking down those "using" the patent who haven't "licensed" its use.
The PURPOSE of patents was to allow people to SHARE their cool invention so others could MAKE USE of it, paying some NOMINAL fee, and not have to re-invent the wheel, so to speak.
The result of decades of pandering to the "Intellectual Property" barons (including the copyright ones, the 'anti-piracy' ones, the 'trademark infringement' kind) is that now we have a government provided monopoly on EXTORTING THE ECONOMY.
You've said before there are so many laws on the books, we're all guilty of something at some time. I suspect that there are so many patents that we are all in violation of one or more of them at one time.
Last time I do anything off of Lifehacker... don't want to be in violation!
Ehud Gavron
Tucson AZ
ob nit: its, not it's.
On the post: Companies Respond To The GDPR By Blocking All EU Users
"We"
Who is "we"?
What organization or group(s) of people do you claim to represent? Are you certain you're not schizophrenic?
> Take care
Yeah, you do the same. Professional care that is.
Also I'm sure Roger appreciates how you misspelled his name.
E
On the post: Amazon Joins Google In Making Censorship Easy, Threatens Signal For Circumventing Censorship Regimes
Re: Re: Re: Re: US Corporations and their objectives
2. If a corporation has told its shareholders (through either their Articles or their annual 10K filings or the quarterly 10Q filings or other SEC filings) that it intends to do so THEN and ONLY THEN is it the fiduciary duty of management to adhere to those goals... that THEY THEMSELVES SET OUT in order to encourage investors. If they fail, CIVIL lawsuits ensue. (No pun intended).
3. "[w]hy should we not impose"... because YOU are NOT someone who gets to impose ANYTHING on ANYONE and neither am I. Corporations have specific goals and so long as they are operating within the law we don't get to tell them what to do.
Arguendo you may say "But they have to follow laws and we can pass laws that make them do these other things" and then they'll go incorporate in other countries that don't have your absurd ideas of forcing businesses to do what YOU want vs what THEY want.
Banks are not required to have community investment. I don't know where your ideas are coming from, but they are not United States corporate law. That's for sure.
Ehud
CEO - several US corporations
CTO - several US corporations (formerly one public)
Manager - several US LLCs
Helicopter Pilot Extraordinaire (FAA CPL-H)
On the post: Amazon Joins Google In Making Censorship Easy, Threatens Signal For Circumventing Censorship Regimes
Re: Re: US Corporations and their objectives
THERE IS NO SUCH LAW.
Perhaps I was too subtle and the point was missed.
THERE IS NO SUCH LAW.
Public corporations exist to further outside investors, and as I explained they do this via growth or profit. It has nothing to do wiht a law, nor greed, nor anti-communism, nor anything else you've espoused. It's simply to attract investment money over the next security.
E
On the post: Amazon Joins Google In Making Censorship Easy, Threatens Signal For Circumventing Censorship Regimes
US Corporations and their objectives
There are no laws requiring profit or growth. Corporations that want outside investment on the open market CHOOSE to emphasize those in their Articles of Incorporation (AOI), to go have an initial public offering (IPO), and to publicly trade. When they do that, they provide incentives for investors to buy and hold the shares ("long position") through continued growth (share value goes up) or profit and distribution (dividends).
Nothing in the law requires this. Corporations exist that do not emphasize this. Typically they are non-public. Some are for profit and some are not for profit. (Not for profit doesn't mean they don't make a profit... merely that they reinvest it back into the corporation).
Amazon and Google are public corporations. If you don't like their corporate goals or their data sharing models, find private corporations (Open Whisper Systems? Lavabit? etc.) and use their services.
Ehud
On the post: Amazon Joins Google In Making Censorship Easy, Threatens Signal For Circumventing Censorship Regimes
US Corporations and their objectives
A US Corporation isn't required to focus on GROWTH, PROFIT, REVENUE, or even HELPING THE WORLD. It is whatever its incorporators decided when they created it. Similarly, INVESTORS are not required to invest in any instrument (stocks, bonds, etc.) unless they feel the instrument will reward them in some way.
Put together, corporations that seek outside funding and stockholders often provide revenue forecasts and share revenue (dividends) or provide growth forecasts so that the market will drive share value (and price) up. Either way the investors are rewarded and they will invest.
Some corporations don't want these investors. They are typically also not going to go for an initial public offering (IPO) or list themselves on a major exchange (e.g. NASDAQ, AMSE, FOREX, etc.) because the traffic in their securities will be miniscule compared to the high-moving stocks with great dividends or growth.
So to say that this is a problem with US law is wrong. To say that this is a requirement of nonsocialism is wrong. It's merely looking a a microcosm (PUBLIC corporations and their investors) and analogize the rest to it.
Now back to the original question... we know both Google and Amazon are publicly traded, and yes, their investors want growth and profit. If you want to use services of companies that aren't thus limited my I recommend you check out Whisper Systems (they make Signal), and of course the now-defunct Lavabit. There are PLENTY of non-public corporations whose goals are NOT profit and growth but rather providing a service and not screwing their customers.
Ehud
On the post: Stupid Square Donuts Trademark Dispute Still Going Strong Despite The Mark Being Purely Descriptive
Re: Silly people
;)
E
On the post: Amazon Joins Google In Making Censorship Easy, Threatens Signal For Circumventing Censorship Regimes
Re: Re: Re: Clickbait headline?
When trying to explain things, analogies help take something we don't understand and put it in terms we do understand. In this case it took things you didn't understand and put it in terms that were not correct.
Ehud
On the post: Amazon Joins Google In Making Censorship Easy, Threatens Signal For Circumventing Censorship Regimes
Re: Re: Analogies
E
On the post: Amazon Joins Google In Making Censorship Easy, Threatens Signal For Circumventing Censorship Regimes
Analogies
Here's a more apt analogy:
They discovered they can use the heavily discounted smart TV for a PC monitor and all that resolution and high refresh rate is a lot cheaper than a normal "monitor only" solution! In response the smart TV vendor says "No no no, we sold you this set at a discount so we can track your viewng behavior and make money on you in other ways. No more using it as a dumb monitor."
There's no violation of terms or of using undocumented features, and nobody "piggy back on a hack" as there's no hack. I think it's disingenuous to suggest it's disingenuous to call out Amazon as that is EXACTLY the right thing to do.
Best regards to JB,
Ehud
On the post: Amazon Joins Google In Making Censorship Easy, Threatens Signal For Circumventing Censorship Regimes
Circumvention of national blocks
1. Block IPv4 address(es) or ranges of addresses and disallow your users to reach those "unwanted" servers providing those "harmful" services.
2. Enable deep packet inspection (DPI), forged certificates, decrypt everything having performed a man in the middle (MITM) attack, and remove traffic you don't like.
The former is easy and is why it's the preferred option. Domain fronting doesn't making this difficult... it makes it impossible to identify "harmful" traffic from "all of e.g. google cloud" in real time if at all.
Google and Amazon are wrong to do this, and it is their right to do so, but it shows short-sightedness to do so absent any overarching reason for it.
Signal, WhatsApp, etc. should re-engineer their protocols to not be dependent on ONE provider, ONE cloud, or even ONE identifiable communication "stream". They can learn a lot from TOR, from spread spectrum, from anycast IP addresses, and lastly from thepiratebay.org and remain vibrant, reachable, and well from all countries.
E
On the post: Microsoft Defends Putting A Computer Recycler In Jail With Misleading Statement
Re: So, entrapment again.
Mac: No, actually it's called blackmail. Entrapment is what cops do to thieves.
On the post: Microsoft Defends Putting A Computer Recycler In Jail With Misleading Statement
Re:
Simply put, if you can download an ISO and burn it to a CD that in and of itself is not a violation of US copyright law (yet!). If, however, you attempt to use it you require a license, and THAT is where an EULA would possibly come into effect given a lot of other (not relevant to this discussion) factors.
1. Download an ISO available to anyone without an EULA or an "I agree".
2. Burn said ISO to hard media.
3. You're not a pirate. Have a Coke and a smile.
E
On the post: Microsoft Defends Putting A Computer Recycler In Jail With Misleading Statement
Sarcasm?
E
* Technically your sentence start "...don't forget..." can be true because you're just telling someone to remember something... but the thing you tell them to remember is, again, not in accordance with US law.
Note: I am not a lawyer, but I have been investigated for UPL. I'm not an idiot, but nobody's investigated me for that. The FBI wanted to know about my techdirt posts, so now I have to watch what I saw. All this is true, unlike the comments in the above post.
On the post: Microsoft Defends Putting A Computer Recycler In Jail With Misleading Statement
"Steady income"
It doesn't say "profit", "massive profit", "arrrr ya maties" or anything of that nature.
Lots of people choose to convert a fixed asset into an income. In the business world we call it "moving from the balance sheet to the P&L." You might think of it as "buying a house and renting it out."
He bought an $84,000 house and hoped to collect rent for a long long time. Perhaps in time there would be profit, but certainly at this point not so.
Microsoft is dissembling and prevaricating when they "suggest" that they lost any revenue, as they give the contents of these CDs for free. All he did was go from .ISO file to stamped CDs. His "crime" appears to be that he duplicated labels on the CDs that were not honest.
For that he will spend over a year in jail.
I sure am glad the last time I put a family portrait on the DVD label of the family reunion pics the guy who took the pics didn't Naruto me for copyright infringement. I'd be in prison now.
Justice. The wheels grind. They grind slowly. Sometimes they turn good people into ground beef. (h/t KW for the original comment, although I broke it up.)
E
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Oh... didn't answer your question," but come to think of it, yeah, me did?
E
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Are you unable to express yourself other than by asking me about me?
Tell me about yourself.
Please elucidate.
E
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Never have. Never will.
I agree in principle though. Two of us agree. You've got a few billion people on this planet and five up on the ISS to go.
E
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Apocryphal stories
There was no British guy... hauled into court... duchess... pig... etc.
E
On the post: Glass-Tongued Copyright Troll Thinks Google, Popehat, and Boing Boing Are Engaged In 'Black Hat Seo'
If only...
If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful would we be kissing asses.
E
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