Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 7 Feb 2013 @ 12:52pm
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I get that you can frame it that way as a rhetorical device, but I don't get why it matters.
If you don't understand why rhetoric matters, why do you keep throwing the "intellectual property" term around? It was created for exactly that reason.
If you think you have a better way of doing things, tell us that. That would be more useful than just complaining about the status quo generally.
Did that last week.
Now how do we decide what evidence is important?
All evidence is important - that's how science works. That's why it is extremely important that the evidence be gathered in reliable ways and with clear methodology, and that it is open to criticism. There may be some evidence that is more significant, but all of it is important.
And how do we account for the benefit that the restriction on the free flow on information (through the incentive of exclusionary, marketable rights) brings with it?
As Mike has repeatedly stated, he wishes to see experiments performed that can test those assumptions. There are various ways this could be accomplished - large copyright-centric businesses could experiment with more permissive uses of their content - whole countries could dramatically revise their copyright laws to experiment with more permissive sharing of ideas and content.
Nothing is stopping "free" from proving it except for "free."
We all know that isn't true when "free" is under constant attack from "restricted" (and I'll admit, vice versa, its just "restricted" has the weight of law and the full powers of government behind it at present, as we saw tragically demonstrated with Aaron Swartz).
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 7 Feb 2013 @ 11:28am
Re: Re:
F-Secure has a good one, at least as far as detection goes. Some of the initial testing of it is what started the whole Sony fiasco.
Removal is an entirely different ball of wax. If your system has been penetrated at the level of a modern rootkit, you simply can't trust it any longer, so removal is moot.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 7 Feb 2013 @ 11:18am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Copyright law gives property rights to authors. It's really simple. I know it melts the brain of most here to even consider the possibility that copyright is property, but the fact is that its been acknowledged to be property for centuries.
Copyright law *creates* psuedo-property-like rights to authors. These rights are an artificial construct of law, and not a natural property right, and in the creation of these rights, other rights are taken away from everyone else.
Most here understand this perfectly well. We understand why some people want to be able to exercise artificial control over knowledge/ideas/culture/content. But just because people want this artificially created right does not mean that the right is a good thing, nor that it is required.
Many here are fine to agree that some types of copyrights may be a net benefit to society, if given the evidence that supports that idea. Others of us feel that any restriction on the free flow of knowledge/ideas/culture/content is a detriment that may even outweigh the benefits.
Removing these artificial economic rights would not be completely unprecedented. There was a situation, in this country, where the rights of one set of people conflicted with the rights of others. In the end, the human rights won out over the economic rights, and those economic rights were taken away. Have I given enough clues to the situation I speak of?
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 7 Feb 2013 @ 8:17am
Re: Re: Re:
Follow the link to the patent in the article. All the claims are there in full, and since anyone can easily follow the link and see them all, I didn't bother to reproduce them all. (Wouldn't want to get sued for copyright infringement because I quoted an entire patent, ya know.)
Please follow the link and then respond. Again, I'll state, after reading through all 35 claims, that the only thing that is not software or a business method they claim to have invented in this patent resembles an iPod.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 7 Feb 2013 @ 7:57am
Re:
The claims of the patent cover various iterations of an article of manufacture.
Surprisingly, I'll agree:
"Claims
1. A media player for acquiring and reproducing media program files...comprising:
a digital memory,
a communications port...
a processor coupled to said digital memory and to said communications port...
2. A media player as set forth in claim 1 wherein said digital memory includes a mass storage device for persistently storing attribute data and media files downloaded via said communications port."
It sounds to me like they've patented an iPod. In 2009.
It is not software, nor is it a business method.
Well, continuing reading the rest of the claims, they're mostly functions performed by software on the device patented in Claim 1. Which to my understanding of even the craziness of the patent system would wouldn't apply to someone doing similar things on a general purpose computer, right?
So why are they suing people who produce and distribute podcasts over the internet?
Unless they *are* claiming that the patent applies to software running on general purpose computers. But you just said they didn't patent software.
So again, why are they suing people who produce and distribute podcasts over the internet?
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 7 Feb 2013 @ 7:38am
Re: Who is "Personal Audio"?
Judging by the description of that company, you'd think they were pirates.
"downloading content...from the Internet"
"self-funded"
"download, store and manipulate audio"
"MP3"
Can we sic the studios on them?
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 7 Feb 2013 @ 7:23am
Re: Re: Re:
can't think of one instance where using a registry cleaner has harmed a otherwise working software.
You want a specific example? This one isn't even related to ad/spyware - just questionable design of software drivers. Back when I worked at Canon, we would occasionally run across a system with a seriously screwed up print spooler that we could never get printing properly. Did some research, and eventually found out that some Lexmark printers used their own version of the print spooler, and would change various registry entries to redirect the standard Windows spooler to theirs(this is the bad software design bit). This worked fine as long as their software was installed, and would work fine if that software was properly un-installed, as the un-installer reset them back to what they should have been. However, if the software was simply deleted, it left those registry entries intact pointing to files that no longer existed. Guess what would happen when those registry cleaners found that little problem? Entire Windows printing systems were fubar'd and couldn't be fixed without an OS reinstall. Without those cleaners, all it took was someone knowledgeable pointing the registry entries back to the standard spooler service.
While that may be a specialized example, there were plenty of other situations with programs using shared files/libraries that could experience the same type of issues.
On systems that have a lot of churn in software
If you've got a system like that, you should be regularly doing clean installs of the whole operating system, and dealing with the cause, not the symptoms.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 7 Feb 2013 @ 6:51am
Re: Re: Re: Just a quick search ... and harsh opinion.
They were too trusting of their doctors in my opinion.
When I find a doctor that I trust and is knowledgeable, I follow their advice. They're the ones that have been to medical school and trained to do their jobs. So while I'll ask some questions, I trust the professionals over what I can find on a quick Google search.
While I don't do computer repair and general tech support any more, nothing would annoy me more than someone who had no idea what they were doing to ask me for help *and then not follow my advice or let me fix the problem*. When someone was paying me for my skills and advice, I don't expect them to go and do something else just because the internet told them to - so I treat the professionals I pay as I expect to be treated.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 7 Feb 2013 @ 6:31am
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Guess the sarcasm didn't come through strongly enough. Yes, I know all that. My point was to illustrate the complete hypocrisy of the government and one-sidedness of copyright law.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 7 Feb 2013 @ 5:38am
Re: Just a quick search ... and harsh opinion.
That warning, or similar ones, were very prominent on a number of sites about the drug.
These warnings are available now, very possible as a result of this guy's condition/lawsuit.
The questions are:
Were the warnings there when he started taking the drug?
Did Phizer know about the side effects when they created the drug initially and not report them?
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 6 Feb 2013 @ 1:04pm
Re: Re:
but good luck getting any US Attorney or federal judge to start waging some kind of extradition war with the Indian government to try and get their hands on a guy in Uttar Pradesh for falsifying a DMCA claim.
If they have the resources to seek extradition for Richard O'Dwyer for doing something legal where he lived, then why wouldn't they have the resources to go after this Chatwal? The copyright supporters keep telling us that the law is the law and it must be upheld, otherwise the global economy will collapse, all creative content will vanish, dogs and cats living together, etc.
If they don't seek extradition and threaten him with the maximum sentence, then it is evidence of selective prosecution, and of course the government would never, ever, ever do that.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 6 Feb 2013 @ 5:36am
Re:
Both are equally worthless, and while unlikely, they could damage legitimate programs you want to be able to run.
Deleting temporary internet cached files is easily done in a safe manner via your browser. Allowing a cleaner utility to remove registry entries for other programs is not likely to be a good idea, as the creator of the cleaner is unlikely to have knowledge of how those other programs work.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 4 Feb 2013 @ 10:23am
Re:
Parents already have to sign various documents when they register their kids for school. This will just be another form in the packet that (almost) no one ever reads.
On the post: Teri Buhl Threatens To Sue Us And Others; Still Seems Confused About The Law
Re: Re: Re:
Doubling Down on Stupid
On the post: No, Copyright Is Not Like A Contract
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
If you don't understand why rhetoric matters, why do you keep throwing the "intellectual property" term around? It was created for exactly that reason.
If you think you have a better way of doing things, tell us that. That would be more useful than just complaining about the status quo generally.
Did that last week.
Now how do we decide what evidence is important?
All evidence is important - that's how science works. That's why it is extremely important that the evidence be gathered in reliable ways and with clear methodology, and that it is open to criticism. There may be some evidence that is more significant, but all of it is important.
And how do we account for the benefit that the restriction on the free flow on information (through the incentive of exclusionary, marketable rights) brings with it?
As Mike has repeatedly stated, he wishes to see experiments performed that can test those assumptions. There are various ways this could be accomplished - large copyright-centric businesses could experiment with more permissive uses of their content - whole countries could dramatically revise their copyright laws to experiment with more permissive sharing of ideas and content.
Nothing is stopping "free" from proving it except for "free."
We all know that isn't true when "free" is under constant attack from "restricted" (and I'll admit, vice versa, its just "restricted" has the weight of law and the full powers of government behind it at present, as we saw tragically demonstrated with Aaron Swartz).
On the post: Canadian Chamber Of Commerce Wants To Legalize Spyware Rootkits To Help Stop 'Illegal' Activity
Re: Re:
Removal is an entirely different ball of wax. If your system has been penetrated at the level of a modern rootkit, you simply can't trust it any longer, so removal is moot.
On the post: No, Copyright Is Not Like A Contract
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Copyright law *creates* psuedo-property-like rights to authors. These rights are an artificial construct of law, and not a natural property right, and in the creation of these rights, other rights are taken away from everyone else.
Most here understand this perfectly well. We understand why some people want to be able to exercise artificial control over knowledge/ideas/culture/content. But just because people want this artificially created right does not mean that the right is a good thing, nor that it is required.
Many here are fine to agree that some types of copyrights may be a net benefit to society, if given the evidence that supports that idea. Others of us feel that any restriction on the free flow of knowledge/ideas/culture/content is a detriment that may even outweigh the benefits.
Removing these artificial economic rights would not be completely unprecedented. There was a situation, in this country, where the rights of one set of people conflicted with the rights of others. In the end, the human rights won out over the economic rights, and those economic rights were taken away. Have I given enough clues to the situation I speak of?
On the post: Patent Troll Says It Owns Podcasting; Sues Adam Carolla, HowStuffWorks
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Here's A Taste Of What Publishers Will Do If First Sale Rights For Foreign Goods Disappear
Re: Re: Re: Wait! They said what?
To them, outrageous would be to not increase their power anytime they ask...
On the post: Patent Troll Says It Owns Podcasting; Sues Adam Carolla, HowStuffWorks
Re: Re: Re:
Please follow the link and then respond. Again, I'll state, after reading through all 35 claims, that the only thing that is not software or a business method they claim to have invented in this patent resembles an iPod.
On the post: Patent Troll Says It Owns Podcasting; Sues Adam Carolla, HowStuffWorks
Re:
Surprisingly, I'll agree:
"Claims
1. A media player for acquiring and reproducing media program files...comprising:
a digital memory,
a communications port...
a processor coupled to said digital memory and to said communications port...
2. A media player as set forth in claim 1 wherein said digital memory includes a mass storage device for persistently storing attribute data and media files downloaded via said communications port."
It sounds to me like they've patented an iPod. In 2009.
It is not software, nor is it a business method.
Well, continuing reading the rest of the claims, they're mostly functions performed by software on the device patented in Claim 1. Which to my understanding of even the craziness of the patent system would wouldn't apply to someone doing similar things on a general purpose computer, right?
So why are they suing people who produce and distribute podcasts over the internet?
Unless they *are* claiming that the patent applies to software running on general purpose computers. But you just said they didn't patent software.
So again, why are they suing people who produce and distribute podcasts over the internet?
On the post: Patent Troll Says It Owns Podcasting; Sues Adam Carolla, HowStuffWorks
Re: Who is "Personal Audio"?
"downloading content...from the Internet"
"self-funded"
"download, store and manipulate audio"
"MP3"
Can we sic the studios on them?
On the post: More Prenda Insanity: Lawyer Claims Defendant Erased Infringing Activity Using A Registry Cleaner, Citing A Single EHow Submission
Re: Re: Re:
You want a specific example? This one isn't even related to ad/spyware - just questionable design of software drivers. Back when I worked at Canon, we would occasionally run across a system with a seriously screwed up print spooler that we could never get printing properly. Did some research, and eventually found out that some Lexmark printers used their own version of the print spooler, and would change various registry entries to redirect the standard Windows spooler to theirs(this is the bad software design bit). This worked fine as long as their software was installed, and would work fine if that software was properly un-installed, as the un-installer reset them back to what they should have been. However, if the software was simply deleted, it left those registry entries intact pointing to files that no longer existed. Guess what would happen when those registry cleaners found that little problem? Entire Windows printing systems were fubar'd and couldn't be fixed without an OS reinstall. Without those cleaners, all it took was someone knowledgeable pointing the registry entries back to the standard spooler service.
While that may be a specialized example, there were plenty of other situations with programs using shared files/libraries that could experience the same type of issues.
On systems that have a lot of churn in software
If you've got a system like that, you should be regularly doing clean installs of the whole operating system, and dealing with the cause, not the symptoms.
On the post: Court Says Pfizer May Be Liable For Side Effects Of Drug, Even Though Man Took Non-Pfizer Generic Version
Re: Re: Re: Just a quick search ... and harsh opinion.
When I find a doctor that I trust and is knowledgeable, I follow their advice. They're the ones that have been to medical school and trained to do their jobs. So while I'll ask some questions, I trust the professionals over what I can find on a quick Google search.
While I don't do computer repair and general tech support any more, nothing would annoy me more than someone who had no idea what they were doing to ask me for help *and then not follow my advice or let me fix the problem*. When someone was paying me for my skills and advice, I don't expect them to go and do something else just because the internet told them to - so I treat the professionals I pay as I expect to be treated.
On the post: DMCA As Censorship: Site Reposts Articles About Disgraced Researcher, Claims Copyright, Has Originals Removed
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Court Says Pfizer May Be Liable For Side Effects Of Drug, Even Though Man Took Non-Pfizer Generic Version
Re: Just a quick search ... and harsh opinion.
These warnings are available now, very possible as a result of this guy's condition/lawsuit.
The questions are:
Were the warnings there when he started taking the drug?
Did Phizer know about the side effects when they created the drug initially and not report them?
On the post: DMCA As Censorship: Site Reposts Articles About Disgraced Researcher, Claims Copyright, Has Originals Removed
Re: Re:
If they have the resources to seek extradition for Richard O'Dwyer for doing something legal where he lived, then why wouldn't they have the resources to go after this Chatwal? The copyright supporters keep telling us that the law is the law and it must be upheld, otherwise the global economy will collapse, all creative content will vanish, dogs and cats living together, etc.
If they don't seek extradition and threaten him with the maximum sentence, then it is evidence of selective prosecution, and of course the government would never, ever, ever do that.
On the post: More Prenda Insanity: Lawyer Claims Defendant Erased Infringing Activity Using A Registry Cleaner, Citing A Single EHow Submission
Re:
Deleting temporary internet cached files is easily done in a safe manner via your browser. Allowing a cleaner utility to remove registry entries for other programs is not likely to be a good idea, as the creator of the cleaner is unlikely to have knowledge of how those other programs work.
On the post: How Much Does HBO Pay MarkMonitor To Send DMCA Notices Removing Its Official Content From Google?
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: How Much Does HBO Pay MarkMonitor To Send DMCA Notices Removing Its Official Content From Google?
Re: Re:
VPN capability is already built-in to all the most popular torrent clients. You set it once and never have to again.
pretty soon VPN services which don't immediately cough up customer details will find it prudent to decline USA customers.
So starts another game of whac-a-mole.
When will you quit wasting time and money and give customers the content in formats and services they want at prices they are willing to pay?
On the post: Collateral Censorship: Oxford Union Replaces Assange Speech Backdrop, Citing 'Copyright' Concerns
Definitions
Perhaps the Oxford Union should look up "entirety" in the Oxford English Dictionary before they say anything else.
On the post: Copyright Insanity: School Policy Requires Students Hand Over Copyright On All Work
Re:
On the post: Bayer Fights India's Compulsory Licensing Of Cancer Drug By Claiming It Spent $2.5 Billion Developing It
I know where it went
Well, when you add in the lawyer's fees and lobbyists to fight against this law, the $2.5 billion is a tremendous understatement.
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