Wikileaks has drawn the wrath of the US government because it flies in the face of two principles that have infected both big business and government. The first is an obsessive need to feel in control of everything. The second is the idea that the rules and standards you demand that everyone else follow do not apply to you.
Given recent history this should not hinder the federal government at all. They will either interpret the law to make it meaningless or just ignore it if they find that more convenient. And the courts will say that they are hesitant to hinder the war on terrorism and once again throw the Constitution and Bill of Rights under the bus.
How much money have publishers made over the years selling Moby Dick, A Tale of Two Cities, and The Scarlet Letter to high school and college students? The difference is that a lot of different people can do the publishing now, and the new publishers do add their own touches to make their works more competitive and desirable. That can be in the form of things like new illustrations and more modern formatting.
Granted, in most cases it is a different person or organization who is making the profit on the public domain work. But that is exactly what the authors of the constitution had in mind when they wrote the constitution. Authors and publishers have lots of opportunity to profit from the work for a short period (that is essentially what the Constitution says) and then the public gets access to the material. They can consume it or repackage the work creatively and make more profit.
Once a work goes into the public domaint, the original publishers are free to continue making a profit; the only thing that changes is that they no longer have a government-enforced monopoly. The original owners may still have assets that let them continue to be unique. The Beatles case is an example of this. If the Beatles had gone PD before the box set was released, the labels still could have released the videos, pictures, and other items that is of interest to fans. That still would have made the box set unique.
If this works the next logical step is to rename the copyrighted files with legitimate free downloads like ubuntu-9.10-dvd-i386.iso.torrent. That way they can also sue people who had absolutely no intention of doing anything illegal.
>>It's a bit scary that someone like Ballmer doesn't seem to recognize this, because it suggests his strategy in China is not going to do much good at all.
This is only one of many problems that Ballmer doesn't seem to recognize or have a good strategy.
Even if a site has a decent privacy policy on the day you read it does not mean the policy is permanent. Companies usually reserve the right to change the policy unilaterally and without notice. And if the company is bought out all bets about you data are off.
All art is derivative. The only difference with the Tyson tattoo is that it was extremely derivative.
How can Mike Tyson expand copyright law by giving a copyright? If Tyson had also agreed to the artist having ownership of the Brooklyn Bridge it would have no validity. Tyson has no more authority to give a copyright than he has to give away bridges. He could have given away personal rights but he had no authority to give copyright protection.
I predict that it will be three weeks before TI has to start the next round, but only if it takes TI execs two and a half weeks to notice that the new hack has appeared.
This is still the Streisand Effect. Let's reserve Giggs Effect for the next level
This guy is still at the Streisand Effect level in my book because he is still just causing more publicity by fighting for anonymity. Granted, he has taken it to an extreme. But it is still the same basic process.
Remember that with the original Streisand Effect Babbs was only fighting against a rather limited and clumsy Internet. The only tools against her were web sites, FTP, and email. The Internet was not nearly as universal as it is now. There was no Twitter. There was no Facebook. I don't think we had even invented the word "blogging." Heck, there were not even many news sites in those days to cover the story and traditional news media mostly made it a point to avoid the Internet. People were not connected 24/7 with smartphones. As the Internet has grown and matured the speed and intensity of the Streisand Effect has increased, but it is still the same basic principle.
I think we should reserve the Giggs Effect for what is truly the next level. I think the Giggs Effect would be if in fighting you actually manage to reverse the law you were trying to abuse use for protection. Giggs might have actually managed to do that. The next few days may tell us if we have a new effect.
Any increased music sales might not be linked to shutting down Limewire. The increased sales might be due to the start of Amazon and Google cloud music services. Both services increase the value of a music collection by making it easier to use from multiple devices and thus could increase sales. Yes, both services do have annoying restrictions. However, they are probably more useful in their current conditions than they would be if Amazon and Google had complied with the requests of the record labels.
Robots.txt is a relatively simple text file that the site owner can use to tell Google or other text crawlers not to index the website. It can also be used to tell web crawlers how to optimally crawl the site. It is a well known technique among site administrators. It has been around since the earliest days of the web.
When newspapers complain about Google indexing their website it is usually entertaining to look at their robots.text file because it is almost always set up to tell Google explicitly how to index their site.
Generally you can look at the file by just appending /robots.txt to the end of the URL.
On the post: Former Obama Advisor Says Wikileaks Is Wonderful For The US Government
On the post: New Bill Introduced To Outlaw GPS Tracking Without Consent
On the post: Would It Really Be So Bad If The Beatles Were In The Public Domain?
Granted, in most cases it is a different person or organization who is making the profit on the public domain work. But that is exactly what the authors of the constitution had in mind when they wrote the constitution. Authors and publishers have lots of opportunity to profit from the work for a short period (that is essentially what the Constitution says) and then the public gets access to the material. They can consume it or repackage the work creatively and make more profit.
Once a work goes into the public domaint, the original publishers are free to continue making a profit; the only thing that changes is that they no longer have a government-enforced monopoly. The original owners may still have assets that let them continue to be unique. The Beatles case is an example of this. If the Beatles had gone PD before the box set was released, the labels still could have released the videos, pictures, and other items that is of interest to fans. That still would have made the box set unique.
On the post: Litigious Porn Producers Claim People Infringe Even If They Accidentally Downloaded Its Porn Disguised As Popular Works
On the post: With A Choice Between $100 Million In Cash & Fantasyland, The Labels Choose Fantasyland
Re: Google does nothing because it is in Google's interests to do nothing.
On the post: Microsoft Blaming 'Piracy' Rather Than Basic Economics For Its Struggles In China
This is only one of many problems that Ballmer doesn't seem to recognize or have a good strategy.
On the post: Can We Just Admit That The Idea Of A 'Privacy Policy' Is A Failed Idea?
On the post: Maori Angry About Mike Tyson's Tattoo Artist Claiming To Own Maori-Inspired Design
How can Mike Tyson expand copyright law by giving a copyright? If Tyson had also agreed to the artist having ownership of the Brooklyn Bridge it would have no validity. Tyson has no more authority to give a copyright than he has to give away bridges. He could have given away personal rights but he had no authority to give copyright protection.
On the post: UK Injunction Process Revised To Better Fit The Realities Of Internet Communication
Re: I'm bored of the crappy comedy posts now
On the post: Samsung Forced To Hand Over Unreleased Products To Apple In Patent Dispute
On the post: Texas Instruments Learns Nothing, Goes After Hobbyists Again
Re:
On the post: Forget The Streisand Effect, I Think We've Seen The Dawning Of The Giggs Effect
This is still the Streisand Effect. Let's reserve Giggs Effect for the next level
Remember that with the original Streisand Effect Babbs was only fighting against a rather limited and clumsy Internet. The only tools against her were web sites, FTP, and email. The Internet was not nearly as universal as it is now. There was no Twitter. There was no Facebook. I don't think we had even invented the word "blogging." Heck, there were not even many news sites in those days to cover the story and traditional news media mostly made it a point to avoid the Internet. People were not connected 24/7 with smartphones. As the Internet has grown and matured the speed and intensity of the Streisand Effect has increased, but it is still the same basic principle.
I think we should reserve the Giggs Effect for what is truly the next level. I think the Giggs Effect would be if in fighting you actually manage to reverse the law you were trying to abuse use for protection. Giggs might have actually managed to do that. The next few days may tell us if we have a new effect.
On the post: How To Lie With Statistics: France Pretends HADOPI Law Is Working
On the post: Limewire Settles For $105 Million; How Much Of That Will Go To Artists?
On the post: Could BitTorrent Be The Distributed Social Network People Have Been Clamoring For?
On the post: The Economist Disagrees With The Economist: Argues We Need More Patents, Approved Faster
1) There is a relationship between the number of patents issued and the number of jobs created.
2) The relationship is positive.
On the post: Judge Allows US Copyright Group To Shakedown 23,322 IP Addresses For Downloading The Expendables
On the post: Copyright Maximalists Come Out Against New TLDs Because It Creates 'More Space' For Infringement
On the post: Belgian Appeals Court Says Google Must Pay Up For Linking To Newspaper Websites
Robots.txt is a relatively simple text file that the site owner can use to tell Google or other text crawlers not to index the website. It can also be used to tell web crawlers how to optimally crawl the site. It is a well known technique among site administrators. It has been around since the earliest days of the web.
When newspapers complain about Google indexing their website it is usually entertaining to look at their robots.text file because it is almost always set up to tell Google explicitly how to index their site.
Generally you can look at the file by just appending /robots.txt to the end of the URL.
On the post: China Centralizes The Great Firewall Into Single Censorship Body
/sarc
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