the relevant section:
"material objects, other than phonorecords, in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device."
It would seem that a file on a hard disk is still a 'physical' copy. That file is represented by bits of material either with or without a magnetic charge which translate into 1s and 0s which are read by the computer and turned into music.
That to me is still a 'physical' representation of the song.
for your first point. Please, by all means, point out where Dems are calling GOP'ers 'unamerican' or 'traitors' for voicing criticism? Hell you have Cheney himself out there publicly undermining the Office of the President. Had Gore done that in Feb 2001, you can bet the howls of treason would have been fast and furious from the Right for Nothing party.
Mostly I hear the Dems saying the GOP is blatantly distorting or outright lying about the actual details of bills and policies. "Death Panels" come to mind and "they're going to pull the plug on Grandma" knowing full well they were lying all while pretending to negotiate in good faith. Calling such disingenuous behavior unfair or dangerous is a far cry from explicitly calling such action unamerican or aiding al-Quaeda, both of which explicit were said many many times during the run up to the war.
Or calling out the GOP when they cry foul over deficits. Um, really? after the last 8 years, NOBODY in the GOP has any credibility on fiscal governance.
How about Ari Fleischer? in 2001, after GOP losses in an off year election, he's on the WH podium claiming that Governor's races and special elections are about local issues and not indicative of a national mood. And guess what, now he's a paid shill on CNN claiming that, by golly, the GOP wins in VA and NJ really are referendums on Obama despite polls showing that most people said it was about local issues.
Who attended the Tea Bag parties is of little consequence to me. They were quite small and frankly pretty laughable.
My point was that Fox 'News' spent over a week promoting them on air. News agencies generally don't 'hype' upcoming events incessantly for a week. Without Fox 'News' telling everybody about them every single hour, the already tepid turnout would have been even smaller.
You had Hannity caught on camera lying about turnouts. He's told off air that the attendance was 2000-3500, and then he goes on air and says 15000-25000 easily.
The 'grass roots' movements Fox was supposedly reporting on have basically been unmasked as Freedom Works and other DC based lobbying efforts. Led by Dick Armey and other former GOP bigwigs with contributions from undisclosed sources, they even bused people into different events make it look like more people actually showed up than really did. Except that Fox didn't unmask them...why? because they supported the propaganda they were pushing.
Actually 'Right for nothing' sounds like a great catch phrase!
If Fox News did any reasonable journalism, frankly I wouldn't have an issue with them. It's the blatant hypocrisy and fear mongering that doesn't help the national discourse.
Any criticism of Bush and his policies was met with cries of 'traitor' and 'unamerican'. Now that the GOP has lost control of the WH and Congress, they seem to be quite happy to do nothing but criticize Obama and his policies.
The Tea Bagger 'movement' was utterly and completely promoted by Fox News. That's not 'journalism', that's propoganda.
You have the Fox pundits like Beck calling the President a racist and then Murdoch agreeing with him. Then there's O'Reilly's ambush interviewings; literally following a blogger on vacation 4 hours away in order to try and catch her off guard.
Sorry, Fox 'News' is not a news organization any more.
that shortening of the yellow can happen whether or not there's a red light camera present. They can have a cop sitting there waiting for violators too.
If someone shortened the yellow below the determined safe threshold, then frankly a law was already broken. It would be a threat to public safety.
The implementation details are certainly an issue, but they aren't the fault of the system, just the owner/operators. And that can be mitigated with proper oversight.
Re: Re: Re: Re: The solution is, unfortunately for Mr. Masnick, to use more cameras. . .
Whether the T-bones are included as part of the total number of crashes is an interesting question. Goes to getting actual independent data on the subjects rather than studies funded by one side or another. Something that seems harder and harder to do these days.
As you point out it's the time differential between the opposing traffic directions. From a standing start, yes there isn't much chance unless someone is coming through at a significant delay. But when the opposing traffic is moving with knowledge of when the light will turn green, whether based on local knowledge or whatever, your margin for error is much smaller.
No yellow lights at all? I'd say that's not really a good plan. Giving people warning is usually better than not doing so.
Also, by only having red lights, you would make people more accustom to driving through red lights since it is now a perfectly legal thing to do depending on how long it's been red. Not exactly encouraging the desired behavior IMO.
and Dick Armey is such a reputable source. He's an anti-government zealot who got fired from his law firm job because of his supposed 'grass roots' Freedom Works fear mongering and propoganda. How bad are you when *lawyers* feel like you're giving them a bad name?
Pair being anti-gov with opposing new law enforcement activities and of course he's going to be all over it.
Red light running either is or is not a serious issue. I tend to think it is. If it isn't, we really don't have much to discuss. The systems should obviously not be 'tweaked' to increase revenue, no should the contractors/operators of the system be given a 'cut' of any revenue.
I don't know of a single study that had drivers 'train' to use the new system and then tested how properly trained drivers would react. That's a key key point that is usually glossed over or ignored completely. Currently you have very few intersections with the cameras, and a public that doesn't really know how they work. That leads to snap decisions to slam on the brakes causing rear-end collisions by cars following too closely in the first place.
If yellow lights are too short, by all means increase them. But catching people who run red-lights is still a worthy goal.
Re: Re: The solution is, unfortunately for Mr. Masnick, to use more cameras. . .
You're dead on with the behavior angle. Of course accidents will go up...in the short run.
They haven't retrained the tens of thousands of drivers who go through the intersections as to how to respond to the new devices. Given the abject minimum of training drivers in the US receive, *any* significant change is going to cause issues.
Crashes are also much less severe than the t-bones that were previously being caused.
As people are aware of the cameras behaviors will change, but because they are few and far between right now, it's an "oh crap" realization and people slam on the brakes causing rearend accidents.
The original article also points out that they feel the costs would be higher because of Florida's significant elderly population. My guess is those elderly would also significantly increase costs associated with t-bone crashes too - so it's not exactly an apples to apples comparison they are drawing.
The issues with illegal shortening of yellow light times as well as giving contractors a percentage of the revenue are all serious issues. But they are 'implementation' issues, not systemic faults with the system or technology. Those can be easily corrected.
As people understand how the cameras work and they exist in a majority of intersections the result will be marked decrease in red-light running. Until enforcement is uniform enough nothing will significantly change. It's still the "oh crap" reaction that causes the people following too closely to cause the accident.
Books and other published materials are a different thing. Once they are 'read' they don't really have value anymore. Reference materials etc perhaps an exception, but the 'use' is a much more one time type thing. I also think the publishing industry has much more strict, no pay for play, traditions which have been learned over many years. Blogging by nature is very decentralized and not subject a larger controlling industry.
Reviewing something means having it in your possession. The duration of that possession becomes the issue.
If a car reviewer was given a free car to continue to use after the review was complete, that's a pretty big bias in play.
If the bloggers simply try out a device and then give it back, there isn't any issue. It's the continued use of the freebie they are reviewing that causes the appearance of loss of objectivity.
"It seems like it's the other way around and they feel the need to say so when they AREN'T being paid to endorse the product."
This is exactly the point. An endorsement that isn't being purchased is obviously worth more than someone just paid to say 'this is great!'. When appearing in an ad, it's assumed the actor/athlete/whoever was paid for their time. Bloggers aren't appearing in ads, they are just writing and commenting. Athlete's get endorsement deals so that they will actually use the products (Nike shoes, golf clubs, etc). That shows people that the 'pro' is using the product - and athletes get fined if they are found to be using something else too. We don't get to see a blogger using a specific printer or piece of software.
Since a blogger is commenting on products, it's perfectly reasonable to require disclosure that they were or weren't paid (whether cash or free goods) to get that comment posted.
it perhaps isn't your 'TV' directly, but your tuner. This may be in your TV, your set top box, your DVR or even your computer.
The set top, DVR, computer all have various output formats. Coax, Component, VGA, HDMI.
What the MPAA is asking for is the right to determine which outputs you are allowed to see. For 'in demand' movies, they would let you only record over the lower quality outputs, if at all.
Other requests the MPAA has made in the past are trying to close the 'analog hole'. To bar recording at all on these outputs and only let recording happen on 'approved' digital connections. Meaning the 'recorder' would follow the show's setting to whether it would be recorded or not.
Imagine if Ford wanted to determine what speed you could drive on certain roads? no warning, just makes your Mustang start working like a Pinto.
Personally I don't see anything terribly out of line with standard boilerplate TOS filler. You quote the 'article' as saying they can spy on you without limit, but nothing in the (current) TOS says anything of the sort.
The portion of the TOS you quote *specifically* lists the information that they may use for advertisements. And none of it is from your computer.
The 'Privacy' portion is closer to what you say:
"10. Privacy Policy
Your registration data and certain other information about you are subject to this Terms of Service."
Again, though that's pretty standard stuff I would think. The 'certain' clarification would seem to be something preventing blatant fishing expeditions into unrelated information.
The bigger issue is they don't require a notice to you when the TOS changes. Basically the rules can change without you knowing. Not what I consider 'quality', but hardly rare in the world of online service providers either.
On the post: Does Bluebeat Actually Have A Legal Basis For Its Claim Of Copyright Over Beatles' Songs?
Copies
"material objects, other than phonorecords, in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device."
It would seem that a file on a hard disk is still a 'physical' copy. That file is represented by bits of material either with or without a magnetic charge which translate into 1s and 0s which are read by the computer and turned into music.
That to me is still a 'physical' representation of the song.
On the post: Is Murdoch's Move Against Google Really About Twitter And Facebook?
Re: Re: Re: Re: au contraire
Mostly I hear the Dems saying the GOP is blatantly distorting or outright lying about the actual details of bills and policies. "Death Panels" come to mind and "they're going to pull the plug on Grandma" knowing full well they were lying all while pretending to negotiate in good faith. Calling such disingenuous behavior unfair or dangerous is a far cry from explicitly calling such action unamerican or aiding al-Quaeda, both of which explicit were said many many times during the run up to the war.
Or calling out the GOP when they cry foul over deficits. Um, really? after the last 8 years, NOBODY in the GOP has any credibility on fiscal governance.
How about Ari Fleischer? in 2001, after GOP losses in an off year election, he's on the WH podium claiming that Governor's races and special elections are about local issues and not indicative of a national mood. And guess what, now he's a paid shill on CNN claiming that, by golly, the GOP wins in VA and NJ really are referendums on Obama despite polls showing that most people said it was about local issues.
You can't buy hypocrisy like that.
On the post: Is Murdoch's Move Against Google Really About Twitter And Facebook?
Re: Re: Re: Re: au contraire
My point was that Fox 'News' spent over a week promoting them on air. News agencies generally don't 'hype' upcoming events incessantly for a week. Without Fox 'News' telling everybody about them every single hour, the already tepid turnout would have been even smaller.
You had Hannity caught on camera lying about turnouts. He's told off air that the attendance was 2000-3500, and then he goes on air and says 15000-25000 easily.
The 'grass roots' movements Fox was supposedly reporting on have basically been unmasked as Freedom Works and other DC based lobbying efforts. Led by Dick Armey and other former GOP bigwigs with contributions from undisclosed sources, they even bused people into different events make it look like more people actually showed up than really did. Except that Fox didn't unmask them...why? because they supported the propaganda they were pushing.
On the post: Is Murdoch's Move Against Google Really About Twitter And Facebook?
Re: Re: au contraire
If Fox News did any reasonable journalism, frankly I wouldn't have an issue with them. It's the blatant hypocrisy and fear mongering that doesn't help the national discourse.
Any criticism of Bush and his policies was met with cries of 'traitor' and 'unamerican'. Now that the GOP has lost control of the WH and Congress, they seem to be quite happy to do nothing but criticize Obama and his policies.
The Tea Bagger 'movement' was utterly and completely promoted by Fox News. That's not 'journalism', that's propoganda.
You have the Fox pundits like Beck calling the President a racist and then Murdoch agreeing with him. Then there's O'Reilly's ambush interviewings; literally following a blogger on vacation 4 hours away in order to try and catch her off guard.
Sorry, Fox 'News' is not a news organization any more.
On the post: Is Murdoch's Move Against Google Really About Twitter And Facebook?
au contraire
It doesn't help News Corp. but it sure as hell helps the rest of the 'thinking' world.
On the post: Anger Against Red Light And Speed Cameras Going Mainstream
Re: Re: Red Light Cam Revenue! Yeah!
If someone shortened the yellow below the determined safe threshold, then frankly a law was already broken. It would be a threat to public safety.
The implementation details are certainly an issue, but they aren't the fault of the system, just the owner/operators. And that can be mitigated with proper oversight.
On the post: Anger Against Red Light And Speed Cameras Going Mainstream
Re: Re: Re: Re: The solution is, unfortunately for Mr. Masnick, to use more cameras. . .
As you point out it's the time differential between the opposing traffic directions. From a standing start, yes there isn't much chance unless someone is coming through at a significant delay. But when the opposing traffic is moving with knowledge of when the light will turn green, whether based on local knowledge or whatever, your margin for error is much smaller.
No yellow lights at all? I'd say that's not really a good plan. Giving people warning is usually better than not doing so.
Also, by only having red lights, you would make people more accustom to driving through red lights since it is now a perfectly legal thing to do depending on how long it's been red. Not exactly encouraging the desired behavior IMO.
On the post: Anger Against Red Light And Speed Cameras Going Mainstream
Re: Publicly-available resources
Pair being anti-gov with opposing new law enforcement activities and of course he's going to be all over it.
Red light running either is or is not a serious issue. I tend to think it is. If it isn't, we really don't have much to discuss. The systems should obviously not be 'tweaked' to increase revenue, no should the contractors/operators of the system be given a 'cut' of any revenue.
I don't know of a single study that had drivers 'train' to use the new system and then tested how properly trained drivers would react. That's a key key point that is usually glossed over or ignored completely. Currently you have very few intersections with the cameras, and a public that doesn't really know how they work. That leads to snap decisions to slam on the brakes causing rear-end collisions by cars following too closely in the first place.
If yellow lights are too short, by all means increase them. But catching people who run red-lights is still a worthy goal.
On the post: Anger Against Red Light And Speed Cameras Going Mainstream
Re: Re:
obviously no harm was done.
Laws exist to reduce the 'potential' of harm not only punish people when harm is created.
On the post: Anger Against Red Light And Speed Cameras Going Mainstream
Re: Re: The solution is, unfortunately for Mr. Masnick, to use more cameras. . .
They haven't retrained the tens of thousands of drivers who go through the intersections as to how to respond to the new devices. Given the abject minimum of training drivers in the US receive, *any* significant change is going to cause issues.
Crashes are also much less severe than the t-bones that were previously being caused.
As people are aware of the cameras behaviors will change, but because they are few and far between right now, it's an "oh crap" realization and people slam on the brakes causing rearend accidents.
The original article also points out that they feel the costs would be higher because of Florida's significant elderly population. My guess is those elderly would also significantly increase costs associated with t-bone crashes too - so it's not exactly an apples to apples comparison they are drawing.
The issues with illegal shortening of yellow light times as well as giving contractors a percentage of the revenue are all serious issues. But they are 'implementation' issues, not systemic faults with the system or technology. Those can be easily corrected.
As people understand how the cameras work and they exist in a majority of intersections the result will be marked decrease in red-light running. Until enforcement is uniform enough nothing will significantly change. It's still the "oh crap" reaction that causes the people following too closely to cause the accident.
On the post: Athletes Can Start Endorsing A Brand In Hours... But A Blogger Does It And It's A Federal Issue?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Reviewing something means having it in your possession. The duration of that possession becomes the issue.
If a car reviewer was given a free car to continue to use after the review was complete, that's a pretty big bias in play.
If the bloggers simply try out a device and then give it back, there isn't any issue. It's the continued use of the freebie they are reviewing that causes the appearance of loss of objectivity.
On the post: Athletes Can Start Endorsing A Brand In Hours... But A Blogger Does It And It's A Federal Issue?
Re: Re:
This is exactly the point. An endorsement that isn't being purchased is obviously worth more than someone just paid to say 'this is great!'. When appearing in an ad, it's assumed the actor/athlete/whoever was paid for their time. Bloggers aren't appearing in ads, they are just writing and commenting. Athlete's get endorsement deals so that they will actually use the products (Nike shoes, golf clubs, etc). That shows people that the 'pro' is using the product - and athletes get fined if they are found to be using something else too. We don't get to see a blogger using a specific printer or piece of software.
Since a blogger is commenting on products, it's perfectly reasonable to require disclosure that they were or weren't paid (whether cash or free goods) to get that comment posted.
On the post: Public Knowledge Points Out MPAA's Lies On Why It Wants To Break Your TV
Re: Dark Helmet mistake or inflammatory language?
The set top, DVR, computer all have various output formats. Coax, Component, VGA, HDMI.
What the MPAA is asking for is the right to determine which outputs you are allowed to see. For 'in demand' movies, they would let you only record over the lower quality outputs, if at all.
Other requests the MPAA has made in the past are trying to close the 'analog hole'. To bar recording at all on these outputs and only let recording happen on 'approved' digital connections. Meaning the 'recorder' would follow the show's setting to whether it would be recorded or not.
Imagine if Ford wanted to determine what speed you could drive on certain roads? no warning, just makes your Mustang start working like a Pinto.
On the post: Ralph Lauren And Its Lawyers Discover The Streisand Effect On Bogus DMCA Takedown
Re: old vs new
google cache of the original link that was pulled down.
http://tinyurl.com/LookHereRalph
On the post: Ralph Lauren And Its Lawyers Discover The Streisand Effect On Bogus DMCA Takedown
Google Cache your friend, but not Ralph Lauren's ;-)
or http://tinyurl.com/LookHereRalph for easier copying and pasting
On the post: What's Illegal About Using Twitter To Organize Protests?
Re: Re: Varying levels of 'protest'
Same for texting "the cops are at your door, flush the drugs"
Whether it should be or not...that's life.
On the post: Revisiting The Replicator Analogy: How Infinite Goods Create More Jobs
Re:
'Content' is not an infinite good. Copies of that content are the infinite good.
A live music performance is still worth paying for because it's live. A recording of that performance is, thanks to technology, now an infinite good.
On the post: California Decides To Regulate Vonage
Just a nice factoid
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090904/1449236112.shtm
oops.
On the post: Can A Phone Service Provider Block Calls To Numbers It Doesn't Like?
Re: Vonage
seriously? you didn't know a VOIP phone requires an internet connection?
On the post: Can A Phone Service Provider Block Calls To Numbers It Doesn't Like?
Re: Re: Not Sure I Would Trust It
The portion of the TOS you quote *specifically* lists the information that they may use for advertisements. And none of it is from your computer.
The 'Privacy' portion is closer to what you say:
"10. Privacy Policy
Your registration data and certain other information about you are subject to this Terms of Service."
Again, though that's pretty standard stuff I would think. The 'certain' clarification would seem to be something preventing blatant fishing expeditions into unrelated information.
The bigger issue is they don't require a notice to you when the TOS changes. Basically the rules can change without you knowing. Not what I consider 'quality', but hardly rare in the world of online service providers either.
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