Yup. Seeing the name Microsoft followed closely by a five letter word beginning with F will often get that response because the two are so closely linked. At times it's a bit difficult to tell MS's FUD from fraud as what happens when a customer switches from IIS to Linux or BSD and suddenly gets all these messages from MS about how hard it is to set all this non-microsoft stuff up, how poorly it's supported, that it's stuffed with "old" technology and so on. Which is then repeated by trolls on sites like this as gospel truth. The same trolls who, on other subjects call us "freetards" and other labels.
I'm getting a tshirt whipped up that says "I'm a freetard and PROUD with the Linux penguin on the lower left of the quote and the BSD devil on the upper right". Might as well go public!
You know that Jamie's dad might have shown him places like Pirate Bay, and how to find unlisted torrents and such to show him how dangerous and immoral and illegal they all are but Jamie got a bit of a different message.
The reality is probably closer to the fact that Jamie is a WebKid and operates in that world not the one his dad does so it never occurred to him that remixing a few seconds of a song or two into his mix would result in this kind of bother. In his world what happened is absurd.
I'd think they'd have learned, though they never seem to, that after rushing to get TSA going and screwing up airports to no appreciable increase in security. Result? Security theatre. The appearance of doing something while not doing it.
As bad as SISPA is, and it's awful, the Senate bill in many ways is as bad.
Probable result? More security theatre.
There will be no 100% elimination of cyberspying or intrusion into critical networks as long as human beings are around. People will still set "Password" as their password or their dog's name as their user name. People will always pack up in a hurry and leave their laptop in the hotel room. It's next to impossible to legislate against human stupidity, forgetfulness and the list of usual espionage tools such as bribery, sex and the other list that have been around since people started spying on each other.
Security Theatre II, the latest reality show brought to you by the detergent that cleans whiter than white! 10pm Eastern and 7pm Pacific!
Except that they're too late there too. Society has already changed. Permanently and irrevocably. Too late to even try to change it. Exactly the same as it was too late to stop the changes brought on by Gutenberg's printing press once that got out into the wild.
One of the great things about politicians and absolute monarchs is that they always notice these changes long after they've already happened and it's far too late to change things!
If we're talking Amazon or similar sized online bookstore then at some point the costs of being on line peak and then decline over time as you get more efficient at managing the servers and transactions. Software MAY be a cost if you're using closed source but in the server market Linux or other open source OS has more than enough high end software to manage and keep a web presence going without the costs associated with closed source and setup costs for open source are the same or less than close source.
Publisher fees are negotiable as are agent fees by the author. The latter as the retailer, say Amazon, you may or may not choose to absorb.
In the end none of these are fixed costs and none of them are of any interest to the public/book buyer (market) nor should they be.
Meanwhile as the same market knows the major cost of dead tree publishing -- paper costs, press time, bindery, transportation and so on are gone in ebooks. So if you, as a publisher want to charge me the same amount for an ebook as you would for the hardcover dead tree book then I'll look elsewhere. DRM the ebook and I'll go elsewhere for my reading needs.
Of course, all you've done, as a publisher, is fertilize the "piracy" garden and water it and then you'll act surprised when the ebook with DRM broken suddenly appears on the Internet somewhere for download.
If all of these require a change in how a publisher does business then, as uncomfortable as it will be, they need to adapt. Like any other business, if you/they don't adapt then you/they will fail.
The only problem this gets to solve is who controls the huge cyber-security budget the results of which won't, really, solve anything.
Except, apparently, find new work for unemployed or underemployed specialists in body cavity searches. Who, given the number of times you will be searched you will be responsible for feeding and housing at your own cost.
Enjoy. It's for your own good and please, please remember the children!
The public doesn't care about the "baked in" costs or subsidizing continuing legacy costs, which sounds suspiciously like cross subsidization, fancy headquarters and a host of other things which include obscene executive salaries what they public wants when they put their consumer hat on is what they (the market) considers a reasonable price.
If a massive retailer such as Amazon has determined that $10 for an ebook is the magic price point that people will buy at then that's what the ebooks will sell for for in their store. Should that lead other retailers to insist that the retail price is $10 then too bad for the publishers. The price the publisher wants is supposed to be the suggested retail price anyway. If that drives down the wholesale price, it does.
What the publishers lose in up front pricing they gain back in quantity sold. After all publishing an ebook is a few factors less expensive than a hardcover and the public (market) knows that. If publishers want to add book tour and other promotional costs into their suggested price good for them. The retailer is under no obligation to pass those costs on. Only to sell the books they ordered.
There's not a lot of wiggle room between "monopoly" and "the individual's exclusive right". As used by IP extremists they mean exactly the same thing.
Though in intent and practice copyright and patents conferred a privilege of exclusivity for a a short period of time, not a right. The word right entered into the discussion in the early part of the 19th Century on both sides of the Atlantic as an IP maximalist move by publishers to convince authors and inventors that the privilege of exclusivity was, in fact a right and there to ensure that authors and inventors could make money (actually the publishers could) in a very successful propaganda campaign.
The difference is that rights are inherent and present from birth till death. In short there's no expiration date. As copyright and patents both have expiration dates they are then a grant of privilege. Never mind for a moment the insane length of copyright these days.
In the United States both are intended to expand the useful arts and sciences not limit either which is how maximalists view them both. As property and therefore with boundaries.
In the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth the meaning of copyright was to enhance and expand education, another way of saying "useful arts and sciences". Patent law was intended to reduce or eliminate trade secrets which interfered with the rapid change brought on by the Industrial Revolution and needed by it. Again, another way of saying "useful arts and sciences".
Until the last third of the 20th Century the notion of either copyright or patent was "intellectual property" would have been laughed at followed by a puzzled look and the question "what to you mean?" As the intent of neither copyright or patents were to award property rights as it's understood with real property, possessions or your cat/dog the expression was meaningless. IP Maximalist's have been slaving away for half a century to pretend that the grant of a temporary "privilege" is the same as a grant of property rights, absurd as it is.
Assuming that they are a grant of property rights cancels out their original purpose in England and as declared in the United States Constitution. It allows for the kind of silliness we see far too much of these days complete with claims that the grant of exclusivity is a natural right and ought to be put on the same ground and the right of free speech. Which, as I said, is absurd.
The legal system is trapped in narrow views of both as they applied, very well, 40 years ago. Let's say pre-1881 when the IBM PC appeared and made desktop computing respectable, followed by the birth of the World Wide Web in 1992, followed by the rapid expansion of "broadband" home connections to the Internet and the Web in the late 1990 and continues to this day, though mostly in remote regions and the third world. The first world is now at saturation level.
The HTML and associated protocols made information available in quick and,. often(!) readable forms as documents linked up to each other as projects like search engines appeared so you had a chance to find things. HTML and the Web changed users from passive consumers of data an information to authors and researchers and creators in their own right. This scares the hell out of IP maximalists who, once they figured this out, have been champing at the bit ever since to tighten laws around so-called intellectual property, as they invented a thing called piracy and then plead poverty or potential poverty while still pulling in record profits as a result.
(Something only politicians with their hands out for donations would believe.)
Your term "monopoly" is the correct one even if there is no difference between monopoly and "the individual's exclusive [privilege]" granted by copyright and/or patent in practice, or in law. But monopoly, copyright and patent are granted privileges they are not natural rights or rights in any form.
Is it that former politicians, a mutation that really doesn't exist in the wild, and MPAA execs get together and breed. Then in a remarkably short gestation and maturation process give birth to, all intents and purposes, an identical copy of the former politician though lacking, perhaps, the morals and ethics which the former politician occasionally displayed.
Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Apr 16th, 2012 @ 8:13pm
Disabling the URL for the entire site is an over reaction as long as the claim is still unsubstantiated.
To the file, is another matter, should the host know about the the allegation may still be an over reaction unless it violates contractual terms or the terms of service by, let's say, Mega. The only problem there is that with scripting languages such as PHP the actual URL of the file itself is hidden or changes.
The host does have the moral obligation to tell Mega, let's say, to settle this and do it NOW by disabling the link they have to it and give them a reasonable amount of time to do so. After that they may have the right to break into Mega's database(s) to disable it themselves. The end result, ideally, is the same. As Mega claims that it did exactly that themselves for now the question is academic. Though your statement is reasonable and valid in many ways it's a whole lot easier if it's written into the contract the host has with their customer and have the legal right to use a master password to access their customer's database.
Incidentally, that you had to put quotes around YouTube as a "host", does indicate the real different between a hosting company and the web site, and it's owners, as "hosts". Carpathia hosts more than one web site and one of the standard clauses in the contract for hosting is that the owners of the site are the ones responsible for the content on that site, not the host, unless that content breaks the terms of service.
The host is a transit and storage entity nothing else. Mega rented storage space, leased an IP address and built that site at that address. That Carpathia would have known the business Mega was in simply by the name alone that doesn't mean or give them the right, to monitor every upload and download or every word on forums, etc on the site. If that's your ideal world then hosting would be prohibitively expensive and response times incredibly slow. And setting up an online file locker alone is not illegal nor is being offshore.
In the end it was Mega's job, legally and morally, to respond to takedown notices which, at least to now, they have said they did. It's not Carpthia's job or responsibility. It's Mega that was providing access to the databases they built to hold the files. Carpathia did no such thing. In fact, attempting to access the database directly would have returned, at best, a 404 response. It's like a physical storage locker. I have the key, I allow access the owner of the storage locker doesn't nor do they have the right to break into it without a court ruling to do so even for rent arrears. (At least where I live.)
So responding to take down notices was always Mega's job and responsibility even if the host is copied on the complaint. For the host to respond they would have to crack the password(s) Mega put on their database(s) and remove the file themselves and place it in another database until such time as the dispute is settled. But for the host to crack the password(s) and move the file(s) is of dubious legality UNLESS that's written into a contract or part of the terms of service in the event of a DCMA takedown notice.
Simply put, legally and morally, Carpathia has no right or obligation to get involved in a dispute between a copyright holder and Mega over an alleged incident of infringement. They do not provide access to the file(s) in question, Mega does. They rent storage.
The hosting company has received a large number of DMCA complaints about the site. They would be aware of some of the infringing uses.
Have you any direct evidence that Carpathia directly received so much as a single DCMA complaint or takedown notice? Keeping in mind that DCMA complaints would be and are common for lockers like Megaupload, even if every single file on the site was legit.
I get at least one a month claiming I violated someone's copyright on a photo I took myself and posted on my church's web site. My server company hasn't heard a peep. (The one that comes in regular as clockwork is always from the same lawyer in the U.S. claiming the photo was taken by his client somewhere in Florida. As both are outdoors shots it's incredibly easy to see by the plant life in his client's photo and in mine are completely different. Not surprising as his client took his picture in Florida and mine on Vancouver Island just north of the part of the States called the Pacific Northwest. We're now on a first name basis and he's quite apologetic but his client insists. His client's photo is much better than mine in terms of light and composition, by the way.)
The point is that a complaint, in and of itself, is not evidence that anything wrong is happening. Nor is a take down notice. Some copyright holders do file on anything even remotely similar or, as in my case, something that while similar simply isn't the same and wasn't taken in the same place or time of year.
There's that to take into account as well as the fact that unless Megaupload was violating their terms of service with Carpathia the host wouldn't be the least bit interested and, at best, would just pass it on. Or simply filter forward such complaints directly to Megaupload.
All that said, do you have a shred of evidence that Carpathia had the slightest knowledge of unproven allegations of widespread infringement by Megaupload? "They must have known..." isn't evidence, it's opinion.
As Canada Post is asserting copyright over the database, the one they sell to marketers, political parties and the like, in a sense they ARE asserting copyright over the street address. At least in it's relationship between the address and it's postal code.
What is interesting is that as a Crown Corporation (government owned company) they could have tried to assert Crown prerogative the same version of copyright that Federal and Provincial legislation is published under. They may not be able to.
One note, the database that Canada Post sells is two to three years out of date at any given moment so I'll bet the crowd sourced database is more accurate!
Oh yeah, Canada Post can shove it where the sun don't shine! (Except on Wreck Beach in Vancouver!)
I do hope you left out the sarcasm tag at the end of your AC post. ;-)
The silly thing about the "don't report results before the polls close" is that where at town sits right smack on a time zone boundary, say Lloydminster, Sask and Lloydminster, Alberta it's legal to broadcast the results to people across the street but not to you.
The Canadian law, incidentally, doesn't ban reporting on exit polls just the results lest we are swayed out here in British Columbia by the results in Nova Scotia. Not likely to happen but if it should the voters here in Lotus Land would vote the opposite way to Nova Scotia just out of spite. We're a cranky bunch here.
And, as noted in the post, Elections Canada has, for all practical purposes given up on enforcing the law on social media because it first needs a complaint to investigate. It must drive "old" media nuts to see Twitter and Facebook able to do things they can't. ;-) The law itself is and has been a relic for decades and it's long past time it vanished.
There's nothing Hawley says that's wrong. Particularly is points about the fact that any terrorist wanting to attack an aircraft just has to consult a list of hard and fast rules to get around the security system.
While I can the the possibility (probability?) of profiling lawsuits in a litigious society like the United States if #3 is implemented let's not forget that TSA has been accused of that under the current system. Not to mention scanning of attractive women well...just because.
At the same time, as Hawley also points out that on board security has become so good that an attack on an aircraft from inside the cabin has been reduced. Not to impossible but that a terrorist would be faced with a nightmare attempting to hijack the plane. All of which may have made attempts to hijack an aircraft flight that originates in the United States less "profitable" in the sense that these people have a point to make and can't make it if the attack fails.
In reply to TasMot I'd suggest that that's what Hawley has in mind while relaxing the sillier of the rules such as the ban of fluids. A moving target such as what Hawley and other TSA critics suggest is just harder for a bad guy to figure out and hit.
Keeping in mind that nothing is 100% and should (when) another attack occurs TSA is in the unfortunate positition about being damned if they do and damned if they don't. Either way, they'll get hammered for failing.
I'm not asking you to parse the fine print of the SEC and the rest of the approval for AT&T's network upgrades. The amount AT&T spent is more a function of it's size and all the parts of telecom it's active in than mere network capacity either wireless or land line. Given AT&T's size the amount doesn't really surprise me if it was an across the board upgrade of all their business units. Which a major upgrade, even of their wireless "alone", would entail. Telco networks are tightly integrated beasts and none more so than their data works supporting end user use.
While the number is nice to toss around the wider the upgrade the more the cost. Unlimited data access over cellular networks is a fairy tale, I agree, but that's not as much a function of capacity as it is high error rates and resend requests at the cell switch under the towers chewing up processing time there. That's the reason why accessing data using wifi hotspots or at home often doesn't count towards the cap. The phone isn't trying to use the cellular portion of the network. That shifts the marginal cost per bit to zero as it will get as it maximizes the design of the Internet to minimize congestion and the normal transmission of data not to be always on. (Even streaming audio or video.)
Unlimited for cell data use was a marketing ploy as the marketing people never foresaw people actually using all that capacity and didn't listen to the technical people who did who just said promise it and customers will use it.
The problem cell companies have when they become ISPs is that they have a well deserved reputation for gouging in every other part of their business so the automatic response to a cap is that "they're at it again". The same, by the way, applies to cablecos.
It's in the very nature of cellular to have capacity "issues" because the system was designed for voice not high speed data.
BUT the cellular providers promoted and promised unlimited and that means unlimited. If a person's contract says unlimited and they didn't just assume that when they signed the contract it had better BE unlimited without caps, throttling or extra charges. Of course, it won't be. Because they get to change the terms of the contract on their own. Something their customer isn't allowed to do. ;-)
That's done now by some carriers. For example corporate customers such as high demand/required always on (to the limits of cell network itself) such as emergency services already have that. Where I work it's mandated by regulation that they must. They do have to pay for it though.
I agree with you that after the connection is made to the cell site and then onto the broader telecom network there is little or no capacity problem. Caps, where they are used isn't because of a total network capacity issue at digital levels across the operator, it's always a function of "the last mile", that is capacity from the cell site to the broader network. As more and more sites are connected back to central offices by light this is becoming less and less of a problem.
The arc of usage for the cellular network(s) you link to in your first link isn't really all much of a surprise as it almost perfectly mirrors the landline usage for both voice and data.
I won't even disagree with the overstated warnings in the second link as the issue there is more that of the basic architecture of the cellular network that it is about digital capacity once the device gets by the choke points inherent in cellular networks and climbs onto wired beyond there. (When I say wired I'm including light (or fibre optics) by the way.)
Cellular requires, because it's an over-the-air technology, the conversion of digital to analog before leaving the cell site and again from analog to digital on arrival at the phone. The process is reversed from phone to cell site. It's at the analog portion that bandwidth, using the term properly, enters into this. The more data the more bandwidth during analog transmission and reception. At digital the term is capacity, which you're using correctly.
(More for the information of non techy not telco people than you.) Cell has another big roadblock in it and that's the requirement that the phone's antenna can "see" the cell site's antenna. If something's in the way the signal is degraded or lost increasing the number of errors and resends. Also increasing bandwidth during the analog phase. Cellular has big problem there which can't be overcome until the architecture of the technology is changed to reduce the errors and resends during analog transmission and reception. That's not something said directly by the report discussed in the second link but strongly hinted at.
That and smartphones are always sending and receiving data from the cellular towers unless that feature is expressly turned off. That's not a flaw in the rest of the telecom network it's built into how cell sites and smartphones work with each other and on that I do agree with you that bits aren't and likely never will be free using that technology.
On the post: Microsoft: Open Standards Are Good... If They're The Open Standards We Get Paid For
Re: FRAND-lexic?
I'm getting a tshirt whipped up that says "I'm a freetard and PROUD with the Linux penguin on the lower left of the quote and the BSD devil on the upper right". Might as well go public!
On the post: When The Kids Of Major Label Execs Get Accused Of Infringement...
Re:
The reality is probably closer to the fact that Jamie is a WebKid and operates in that world not the one his dad does so it never occurred to him that remixing a few seconds of a song or two into his mix would result in this kind of bother. In his world what happened is absurd.
It is absurd.
On the post: White House Criticizes CISPA, Though Meekly And For Partially Wrong Reasons
As bad as SISPA is, and it's awful, the Senate bill in many ways is as bad.
Probable result? More security theatre.
There will be no 100% elimination of cyberspying or intrusion into critical networks as long as human beings are around. People will still set "Password" as their password or their dog's name as their user name. People will always pack up in a hurry and leave their laptop in the hotel room. It's next to impossible to legislate against human stupidity, forgetfulness and the list of usual espionage tools such as bribery, sex and the other list that have been around since people started spying on each other.
Security Theatre II, the latest reality show brought to you by the detergent that cleans whiter than white! 10pm Eastern and 7pm Pacific!
On the post: White House Criticizes CISPA, Though Meekly And For Partially Wrong Reasons
Re: Re:
One of the great things about politicians and absolute monarchs is that they always notice these changes long after they've already happened and it's far too late to change things!
On the post: If Publishers Can't Cover Their Costs With $10 Ebooks, Then They Deserve To Go Out Of Business
Re: Re: Help me out here...
Publisher fees are negotiable as are agent fees by the author. The latter as the retailer, say Amazon, you may or may not choose to absorb.
In the end none of these are fixed costs and none of them are of any interest to the public/book buyer (market) nor should they be.
Meanwhile as the same market knows the major cost of dead tree publishing -- paper costs, press time, bindery, transportation and so on are gone in ebooks. So if you, as a publisher want to charge me the same amount for an ebook as you would for the hardcover dead tree book then I'll look elsewhere. DRM the ebook and I'll go elsewhere for my reading needs.
Of course, all you've done, as a publisher, is fertilize the "piracy" garden and water it and then you'll act surprised when the ebook with DRM broken suddenly appears on the Internet somewhere for download.
If all of these require a change in how a publisher does business then, as uncomfortable as it will be, they need to adapt. Like any other business, if you/they don't adapt then you/they will fail.
On the post: CISPA Sponsor Mike Rogers Says Protests Are Mere 'Turbulence' On Landing
Except, apparently, find new work for unemployed or underemployed specialists in body cavity searches. Who, given the number of times you will be searched you will be responsible for feeding and housing at your own cost.
Enjoy. It's for your own good and please, please remember the children!
On the post: If Publishers Can't Cover Their Costs With $10 Ebooks, Then They Deserve To Go Out Of Business
If a massive retailer such as Amazon has determined that $10 for an ebook is the magic price point that people will buy at then that's what the ebooks will sell for for in their store. Should that lead other retailers to insist that the retail price is $10 then too bad for the publishers. The price the publisher wants is supposed to be the suggested retail price anyway. If that drives down the wholesale price, it does.
What the publishers lose in up front pricing they gain back in quantity sold. After all publishing an ebook is a few factors less expensive than a hardcover and the public (market) knows that. If publishers want to add book tour and other promotional costs into their suggested price good for them. The retailer is under no obligation to pass those costs on. Only to sell the books they ordered.
On the post: Copyright Maximalists Try To Regroup And Figure Out How To 'Fight Back' Against The Public
Re: Re: Re: Let's really strive for IP Minimalism
Though in intent and practice copyright and patents conferred a privilege of exclusivity for a a short period of time, not a right. The word right entered into the discussion in the early part of the 19th Century on both sides of the Atlantic as an IP maximalist move by publishers to convince authors and inventors that the privilege of exclusivity was, in fact a right and there to ensure that authors and inventors could make money (actually the publishers could) in a very successful propaganda campaign.
The difference is that rights are inherent and present from birth till death. In short there's no expiration date. As copyright and patents both have expiration dates they are then a grant of privilege. Never mind for a moment the insane length of copyright these days.
In the United States both are intended to expand the useful arts and sciences not limit either which is how maximalists view them both. As property and therefore with boundaries.
In the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth the meaning of copyright was to enhance and expand education, another way of saying "useful arts and sciences". Patent law was intended to reduce or eliminate trade secrets which interfered with the rapid change brought on by the Industrial Revolution and needed by it. Again, another way of saying "useful arts and sciences".
Until the last third of the 20th Century the notion of either copyright or patent was "intellectual property" would have been laughed at followed by a puzzled look and the question "what to you mean?" As the intent of neither copyright or patents were to award property rights as it's understood with real property, possessions or your cat/dog the expression was meaningless. IP Maximalist's have been slaving away for half a century to pretend that the grant of a temporary "privilege" is the same as a grant of property rights, absurd as it is.
Assuming that they are a grant of property rights cancels out their original purpose in England and as declared in the United States Constitution. It allows for the kind of silliness we see far too much of these days complete with claims that the grant of exclusivity is a natural right and ought to be put on the same ground and the right of free speech. Which, as I said, is absurd.
The legal system is trapped in narrow views of both as they applied, very well, 40 years ago. Let's say pre-1881 when the IBM PC appeared and made desktop computing respectable, followed by the birth of the World Wide Web in 1992, followed by the rapid expansion of "broadband" home connections to the Internet and the Web in the late 1990 and continues to this day, though mostly in remote regions and the third world. The first world is now at saturation level.
The HTML and associated protocols made information available in quick and,. often(!) readable forms as documents linked up to each other as projects like search engines appeared so you had a chance to find things. HTML and the Web changed users from passive consumers of data an information to authors and researchers and creators in their own right. This scares the hell out of IP maximalists who, once they figured this out, have been champing at the bit ever since to tighten laws around so-called intellectual property, as they invented a thing called piracy and then plead poverty or potential poverty while still pulling in record profits as a result.
(Something only politicians with their hands out for donations would believe.)
Your term "monopoly" is the correct one even if there is no difference between monopoly and "the individual's exclusive [privilege]" granted by copyright and/or patent in practice, or in law. But monopoly, copyright and patent are granted privileges they are not natural rights or rights in any form.
On the post: Revolving Door Between The MPAA And The Federal Government
Instaclone?
On the post: Judge Preserves Megaupload Evidence For Now, While Gov't Tries To Pin Blame On Hosting Company
Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Apr 16th, 2012 @ 8:13pm
To the file, is another matter, should the host know about the the allegation may still be an over reaction unless it violates contractual terms or the terms of service by, let's say, Mega. The only problem there is that with scripting languages such as PHP the actual URL of the file itself is hidden or changes.
The host does have the moral obligation to tell Mega, let's say, to settle this and do it NOW by disabling the link they have to it and give them a reasonable amount of time to do so. After that they may have the right to break into Mega's database(s) to disable it themselves. The end result, ideally, is the same. As Mega claims that it did exactly that themselves for now the question is academic. Though your statement is reasonable and valid in many ways it's a whole lot easier if it's written into the contract the host has with their customer and have the legal right to use a master password to access their customer's database.
On the post: Judge Preserves Megaupload Evidence For Now, While Gov't Tries To Pin Blame On Hosting Company
Re: Re: Re:
Incidentally, that you had to put quotes around YouTube as a "host", does indicate the real different between a hosting company and the web site, and it's owners, as "hosts". Carpathia hosts more than one web site and one of the standard clauses in the contract for hosting is that the owners of the site are the ones responsible for the content on that site, not the host, unless that content breaks the terms of service.
The host is a transit and storage entity nothing else. Mega rented storage space, leased an IP address and built that site at that address. That Carpathia would have known the business Mega was in simply by the name alone that doesn't mean or give them the right, to monitor every upload and download or every word on forums, etc on the site. If that's your ideal world then hosting would be prohibitively expensive and response times incredibly slow. And setting up an online file locker alone is not illegal nor is being offshore.
In the end it was Mega's job, legally and morally, to respond to takedown notices which, at least to now, they have said they did. It's not Carpthia's job or responsibility. It's Mega that was providing access to the databases they built to hold the files. Carpathia did no such thing. In fact, attempting to access the database directly would have returned, at best, a 404 response. It's like a physical storage locker. I have the key, I allow access the owner of the storage locker doesn't nor do they have the right to break into it without a court ruling to do so even for rent arrears. (At least where I live.)
So responding to take down notices was always Mega's job and responsibility even if the host is copied on the complaint. For the host to respond they would have to crack the password(s) Mega put on their database(s) and remove the file themselves and place it in another database until such time as the dispute is settled. But for the host to crack the password(s) and move the file(s) is of dubious legality UNLESS that's written into a contract or part of the terms of service in the event of a DCMA takedown notice.
Simply put, legally and morally, Carpathia has no right or obligation to get involved in a dispute between a copyright holder and Mega over an alleged incident of infringement. They do not provide access to the file(s) in question, Mega does. They rent storage.
On the post: Judge Preserves Megaupload Evidence For Now, While Gov't Tries To Pin Blame On Hosting Company
Re: Re: Re:
Have you any direct evidence that Carpathia directly received so much as a single DCMA complaint or takedown notice? Keeping in mind that DCMA complaints would be and are common for lockers like Megaupload, even if every single file on the site was legit.
I get at least one a month claiming I violated someone's copyright on a photo I took myself and posted on my church's web site. My server company hasn't heard a peep. (The one that comes in regular as clockwork is always from the same lawyer in the U.S. claiming the photo was taken by his client somewhere in Florida. As both are outdoors shots it's incredibly easy to see by the plant life in his client's photo and in mine are completely different. Not surprising as his client took his picture in Florida and mine on Vancouver Island just north of the part of the States called the Pacific Northwest. We're now on a first name basis and he's quite apologetic but his client insists. His client's photo is much better than mine in terms of light and composition, by the way.)
The point is that a complaint, in and of itself, is not evidence that anything wrong is happening. Nor is a take down notice. Some copyright holders do file on anything even remotely similar or, as in my case, something that while similar simply isn't the same and wasn't taken in the same place or time of year.
There's that to take into account as well as the fact that unless Megaupload was violating their terms of service with Carpathia the host wouldn't be the least bit interested and, at best, would just pass it on. Or simply filter forward such complaints directly to Megaupload.
All that said, do you have a shred of evidence that Carpathia had the slightest knowledge of unproven allegations of widespread infringement by Megaupload? "They must have known..." isn't evidence, it's opinion.
On the post: Canada Post Claims Copyright Over Postal Codes, Meets Resistance
Re: Re: How very RIAA of them
On the post: Canada Post Claims Copyright Over Postal Codes, Meets Resistance
Re: Nonsense
What is interesting is that as a Crown Corporation (government owned company) they could have tried to assert Crown prerogative the same version of copyright that Federal and Provincial legislation is published under. They may not be able to.
One note, the database that Canada Post sells is two to three years out of date at any given moment so I'll bet the crowd sourced database is more accurate!
Oh yeah, Canada Post can shove it where the sun don't shine! (Except on Wreck Beach in Vancouver!)
On the post: French Voters Warned To Stay Off Social Media Lest They 'Crash The Election'
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On the post: French Voters Warned To Stay Off Social Media Lest They 'Crash The Election'
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The silly thing about the "don't report results before the polls close" is that where at town sits right smack on a time zone boundary, say Lloydminster, Sask and Lloydminster, Alberta it's legal to broadcast the results to people across the street but not to you.
The Canadian law, incidentally, doesn't ban reporting on exit polls just the results lest we are swayed out here in British Columbia by the results in Nova Scotia. Not likely to happen but if it should the voters here in Lotus Land would vote the opposite way to Nova Scotia just out of spite. We're a cranky bunch here.
And, as noted in the post, Elections Canada has, for all practical purposes given up on enforcing the law on social media because it first needs a complaint to investigate. It must drive "old" media nuts to see Twitter and Facebook able to do things they can't. ;-) The law itself is and has been a relic for decades and it's long past time it vanished.
On the post: Former TSA Boss Admits Airport Screening Is Broken
While I can the the possibility (probability?) of profiling lawsuits in a litigious society like the United States if #3 is implemented let's not forget that TSA has been accused of that under the current system. Not to mention scanning of attractive women well...just because.
At the same time, as Hawley also points out that on board security has become so good that an attack on an aircraft from inside the cabin has been reduced. Not to impossible but that a terrorist would be faced with a nightmare attempting to hijack the plane. All of which may have made attempts to hijack an aircraft flight that originates in the United States less "profitable" in the sense that these people have a point to make and can't make it if the attack fails.
In reply to TasMot I'd suggest that that's what Hawley has in mind while relaxing the sillier of the rules such as the ban of fluids. A moving target such as what Hawley and other TSA critics suggest is just harder for a bad guy to figure out and hit.
Keeping in mind that nothing is 100% and should (when) another attack occurs TSA is in the unfortunate positition about being damned if they do and damned if they don't. Either way, they'll get hammered for failing.
On the post: The Stupidity Of Data Caps: No One Knows What A Megabyte Is
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Nobody Needs To Know
While the number is nice to toss around the wider the upgrade the more the cost. Unlimited data access over cellular networks is a fairy tale, I agree, but that's not as much a function of capacity as it is high error rates and resend requests at the cell switch under the towers chewing up processing time there. That's the reason why accessing data using wifi hotspots or at home often doesn't count towards the cap. The phone isn't trying to use the cellular portion of the network. That shifts the marginal cost per bit to zero as it will get as it maximizes the design of the Internet to minimize congestion and the normal transmission of data not to be always on. (Even streaming audio or video.)
Unlimited for cell data use was a marketing ploy as the marketing people never foresaw people actually using all that capacity and didn't listen to the technical people who did who just said promise it and customers will use it.
The problem cell companies have when they become ISPs is that they have a well deserved reputation for gouging in every other part of their business so the automatic response to a cap is that "they're at it again". The same, by the way, applies to cablecos.
It's in the very nature of cellular to have capacity "issues" because the system was designed for voice not high speed data.
BUT the cellular providers promoted and promised unlimited and that means unlimited. If a person's contract says unlimited and they didn't just assume that when they signed the contract it had better BE unlimited without caps, throttling or extra charges. Of course, it won't be. Because they get to change the terms of the contract on their own. Something their customer isn't allowed to do. ;-)
On the post: The Stupidity Of Data Caps: No One Knows What A Megabyte Is
Re: Re: Re: Re: Nobody Needs To Know
I agree with you that after the connection is made to the cell site and then onto the broader telecom network there is little or no capacity problem. Caps, where they are used isn't because of a total network capacity issue at digital levels across the operator, it's always a function of "the last mile", that is capacity from the cell site to the broader network. As more and more sites are connected back to central offices by light this is becoming less and less of a problem.
On the post: The Stupidity Of Data Caps: No One Knows What A Megabyte Is
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Nobody Needs To Know
I won't even disagree with the overstated warnings in the second link as the issue there is more that of the basic architecture of the cellular network that it is about digital capacity once the device gets by the choke points inherent in cellular networks and climbs onto wired beyond there. (When I say wired I'm including light (or fibre optics) by the way.)
Cellular requires, because it's an over-the-air technology, the conversion of digital to analog before leaving the cell site and again from analog to digital on arrival at the phone. The process is reversed from phone to cell site. It's at the analog portion that bandwidth, using the term properly, enters into this. The more data the more bandwidth during analog transmission and reception. At digital the term is capacity, which you're using correctly.
(More for the information of non techy not telco people than you.) Cell has another big roadblock in it and that's the requirement that the phone's antenna can "see" the cell site's antenna. If something's in the way the signal is degraded or lost increasing the number of errors and resends. Also increasing bandwidth during the analog phase. Cellular has big problem there which can't be overcome until the architecture of the technology is changed to reduce the errors and resends during analog transmission and reception. That's not something said directly by the report discussed in the second link but strongly hinted at.
That and smartphones are always sending and receiving data from the cellular towers unless that feature is expressly turned off. That's not a flaw in the rest of the telecom network it's built into how cell sites and smartphones work with each other and on that I do agree with you that bits aren't and likely never will be free using that technology.
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