I teach at a university in Missouri, and at this point we are not sure whether this law applies to us. It is written VERY vaguely. Clearly the intent was not to include colleges and universities, but we have some overly-aggressive DA's in the state to complement our cadre of luddite legislators.
Whether it applies to all teachers or not, the bottom line is that this probably won't prevent a single case of child abuse. It might actually prevent a child from reaching out to a teacher for help with another abuser.
This law apparently applies to sites such as Linkedin as well as Facebook. It has become pretty common for teachers (high school and college) to write letters of reference for their students through Linkedin. But that is just one of many babies being thrown out with the bath water by this law.
And this is exactly the problem. Where is the boundary? Does Isabella's designer get to claim all dresses with a split in the bodice? What if the split in Kate's dress is 9cm long, and Isabella's is only 8? If the original dress used thin silk, is it the same design if the new dress uses lace or sheer cotton? How far off from pure white does the the dress need to be? What if Isabella's designer claimed copyright, and someone discovered an even older dress that was very similar?
IP holders almost always try to claim the broadest possible rights. Proponents of the fashion copyright law claim that the proposed law is specific, but if you try to apply the currently proposed law to this situation (assuming copyright law had covered Isabella's dress) then it is clear that the law still leaves a lot of room for interpretation. The only possible outcome is a lot of lawsuits with judges and juries trying to decide whether one neckline is too similar to another. No one wins except the lawyers.
Basically, humans have their legs joined at the top. Therefore you could probably describe just about any leg position as "V shaped." If you want to describe leg position, the term "V shaped" is just about meaningless.
How could you distinguish between leg positions? Well, the angle of the V would be the angle of the legs. In one picture the legs are at an acute angle, and in the other it is obtuse. In fact, you could probably describe the man in one picture as doing the splits. Another way to describe leg position would be the angle at the knees, and knee positions are clearly different.
Of course, the whole thing is meaningless. It looks like the general methodology for "proving" copying is to draw colored lines on each image and then say that the lines are the same, even if they aren't.
Re: Re: If these documents aren't publicly available without JSTOR...
>>while we're at it, lets build some walls and hire some gaurds!
You don't understand Nina's Cartoon. We don't hire the guards or build walls. We have the government do that for us. We only charge for access. http://goo.gl/57FO1
The court got it right. Yahoo isn't liable. Under European law only Google can be found liable of infringement or anything else that it can be remotely connected to.
On a related note, Rupe just told Parliament he had the "Most humble day of my life." I am guessing that his most humble day is still extremely arrogant by most people's standards.
Patent monopolies are supposed to be for the benefit of society. Society only benefits from the execution unless the idea is truly unique (which it rarely is with software patents). Given the Constitutional basis for patents, it makes sense to give rewards to the first to implement.
Eliminating software patents would go a long way toward fixing patent problems. However, coming up with a definition of what constitutes a software patent could be difficult.
The MPAA and its lawyers not only believe that locker services are infringement, they also believe that it is so obvious that all they should have to do is make the accusation and everyone else will see the lockers are guilty.
This type of poorly supported lawsuit can happen when lawyers are too close to their client and start accepting their client's world-view as reality.
Facebook cutting off data export could play into Google+ marketing. One of the points of Google+ is that your data is yours and that you may export it at any time. Facebook is just demonstrating why that is important.
The statement is encouraging, but the industry and their bought-and-paid for stooges have an aircraft carrier's worth of momentum. One little ensign realizing they are on the wrong course will not make any difference if the big brass have convinced themselves they are on the right one.
Whether he has actually signed on with Universal is probably irrelevant given what seems to be SOP at the major labels. They are not bashful about collecting royalties and taking down music that they don't actually have the rights to.
There are more "loses" that you didn't count, and they may be the most important ones.
The music industry loses. The type of restrictions that are proposed stifle the flow of new music from outside the labels. Any mp3 or bittorrent tragic will become suspect. We have already seen a dozen industry black lists that sweep legitimate music sites into the "pirate"caterory.
Back when margarine first started challenging butter on the dinner plate Wisconsin passed a law that strictly defined what butter was. Of course, that was done at the behest of the Wisconsin dairy industry.
Within a few years the dairy industry found a need to change the way they made butter to better compete with margarine. But they couldn't because the law that they had crafted locked them in.
I wonder if the craft beers will find a way to use the new law to put the big boys at a disadvantage. Maybe we should check back in 10 years and see how this works out.
Patents are supposed to cover inventions, not very general concepts. Bell did not patent the idea that "Hey, it would be really cool if we could transmit a voice from one location to another over copper wires." He had to patent a specific implementation of how to do that.
This patent, like so many software and business patents, seems to be more about the idea instead of an implementation. It isn't even very original. It certainly isn't very specific about the implementation. There are lots of mostly amateur flowcharts, but in most cases when you get to the point of actual implementation they just have a general description about what needs to happen then.
This patent was from 2007. It's hard for me to see anything in the patent that wasn't prior art in 1990. The original patent was filed in 1999; I wonder how many extensions and corrections this had to go through to wear down the examiner.
If I ever try to get a software patent on a really shakey idea I want to hire the attorney that got this one past the examiner. It is hard to see how an examiner could be incompetent enough to approve this without a lot of lawyer breath on the back of his neck.
Let's reverse the situation. Suppose the traditional way to be an author was to self publish. Then upstart businesses come along to help writers. The new-fangled publishers provide services like editors who have the power to rewrite your book or tell you how it has to be rewritten to be marketable. They handle promotion, printing, contact with fans, and a hundred little things that they think are needed to be successful.
In that case how would the traditional gatekeepers feel? Undoubtedly they would call relying on publishers cheating because the author was no longer solely responsible for their own success. Traditionalists would denounce "writing by committee" and refuse to admit anyone who relied on such crutches.
Gatekeepers almost always have the problem of assuming that the old way is divinely appointed and the only true and correct way to success. What it comes down to is the gatekeepers were good at using the old system and they are not sure they could survive under anything else.
It is easy to substitute politics in place of economics. Good economics should not be driven by politics, but it often is. Some people who call themselves economists seem to forget their basic economics training once they get caught up in political economics.
On the post: New Missouri Law May Make It Illegal To Friend Your Former Teachers On Facebook
Whether it applies to all teachers or not, the bottom line is that this probably won't prevent a single case of child abuse. It might actually prevent a child from reaching out to a teacher for help with another abuser.
This law apparently applies to sites such as Linkedin as well as Facebook. It has become pretty common for teachers (high school and college) to write letters of reference for their students through Linkedin. But that is just one of many babies being thrown out with the bath water by this law.
On the post: Would Fashion Copyright Have Made Kate Middleton's Knockoff Wedding Dress Illegal?
Re: Re:
And this is exactly the problem. Where is the boundary? Does Isabella's designer get to claim all dresses with a split in the bodice? What if the split in Kate's dress is 9cm long, and Isabella's is only 8? If the original dress used thin silk, is it the same design if the new dress uses lace or sheer cotton? How far off from pure white does the the dress need to be? What if Isabella's designer claimed copyright, and someone discovered an even older dress that was very similar?
IP holders almost always try to claim the broadest possible rights. Proponents of the fashion copyright law claim that the proposed law is specific, but if you try to apply the currently proposed law to this situation (assuming copyright law had covered Isabella's dress) then it is clear that the law still leaves a lot of room for interpretation. The only possible outcome is a lot of lawsuits with judges and juries trying to decide whether one neckline is too similar to another. No one wins except the lawyers.
On the post: Is There A Difference Between Inspiration And Copying?
How could you distinguish between leg positions? Well, the angle of the V would be the angle of the legs. In one picture the legs are at an acute angle, and in the other it is obtuse. In fact, you could probably describe the man in one picture as doing the splits. Another way to describe leg position would be the angle at the knees, and knee positions are clearly different.
Of course, the whole thing is meaningless. It looks like the general methodology for "proving" copying is to draw colored lines on each image and then say that the lines are the same, even if they aren't.
On the post: Aaron Swartz Indictment Leading People To... Upload JSTOR Research To File Sharing Sites
Re: Re: If these documents aren't publicly available without JSTOR...
You don't understand Nina's Cartoon. We don't hire the guards or build walls. We have the government do that for us. We only charge for access. http://goo.gl/57FO1
On the post: Italian Court Realizes That Yahoo Isn't Liable For Infringing Works Found Via Its Search Engine
On the post: Belgian Newspapers 'Give Permission' To Google To Return Them To Search Results
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Belgian Newspapers 'Give Permission' To Google To Return Them To Search Results
Re: Re:
I was being generous.
On the post: Belgian Newspapers 'Give Permission' To Google To Return Them To Search Results
On the post: App Developers Dropping Out Of US Out Of Fears Over Patent Lawsuits
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: App Developers Dropping Out Of US Out Of Fears Over Patent Lawsuits
On the post: Judge Drops Key Claim In MPAA's Case Against Hotfile: Cyberlocker Didn't Directly Infringe
This type of poorly supported lawsuit can happen when lawyers are too close to their client and start accepting their client's world-view as reality.
On the post: Social Networking Wars 2011: Everyone Cutting Off Everyone Else
On the post: Smear Campaign Ramps Up Against Those Who Believe Free Speech Is More Important Than Hollywood's Obsolete Business Model
On the post: Ericsson Recognizes That 'Piracy' Isn't The Problem, But A Symptom Of Failed Business Models
On the post: Drake Tells Universal Music To Stop Taking Down The Music He's Leaking
Re:
Whether he has actually signed on with Universal is probably irrelevant given what seems to be SOP at the major labels. They are not bashful about collecting royalties and taking down music that they don't actually have the rights to.
On the post: Why ISPs Becoming Hollywood Enforcers Won't Actually Solve Hollywood's Problem
The music industry loses. The type of restrictions that are proposed stifle the flow of new music from outside the labels. Any mp3 or bittorrent tragic will become suspect. We have already seen a dozen industry black lists that sweep legitimate music sites into the "pirate"caterory.
Democracy loses. On so many levels.
On the post: Giant Breweries Get Laws Passed In Wisconsin To Make Life Hard For Small Breweries [Updated]
Like butta...
Within a few years the dairy industry found a need to change the way they made butter to better compete with margarine. But they couldn't because the law that they had crafted locked them in.
I wonder if the craft beers will find a way to use the new law to put the big boys at a disadvantage. Maybe we should check back in 10 years and see how this works out.
On the post: BitTorrent Sued For Patent Infringement
This patent, like so many software and business patents, seems to be more about the idea instead of an implementation. It isn't even very original. It certainly isn't very specific about the implementation. There are lots of mostly amateur flowcharts, but in most cases when you get to the point of actual implementation they just have a general description about what needs to happen then.
This patent was from 2007. It's hard for me to see anything in the patent that wasn't prior art in 1990. The original patent was filed in 1999; I wonder how many extensions and corrections this had to go through to wear down the examiner.
If I ever try to get a software patent on a really shakey idea I want to hire the attorney that got this one past the examiner. It is hard to see how an examiner could be incompetent enough to approve this without a lot of lawyer breath on the back of his neck.
On the post: Mystery Writers Of America: Real Writers Don't Self-Publish
In that case how would the traditional gatekeepers feel? Undoubtedly they would call relying on publishers cheating because the author was no longer solely responsible for their own success. Traditionalists would denounce "writing by committee" and refuse to admit anyone who relied on such crutches.
Gatekeepers almost always have the problem of assuming that the old way is divinely appointed and the only true and correct way to success. What it comes down to is the gatekeepers were good at using the old system and they are not sure they could survive under anything else.
On the post: Another Example Of The Difference Between Value And Price: Free Mosquito Nets Are More Valued
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