pretty much every nation on earth has laws protecting intellectual property
Just because something is the law doesn't make it good or right.
Just because something is against the law doesn't make it bad or wrong.
I break the law all the time. I foccasionally speed. Sometimes (say, on a deserted country highway) I change lanes without indicating. If it's say 3am in the morning and i get a red light in a deserted industrial estate, i'll stop and if no traffic will go through the red light.
OMG all illgal, I am a horrible, bad person for breaking the law!
The law needs to be tempered with common sense. If its not hurting anyone else to 'break' the law, then whats wrong with it? Copyright infringement (not piracy, I don't cruise the high seas performing armed, forceful boardings of vessels and kidnap, murder, rob passengers) hurts no-one.
Wouldn't owning the copyrights to a large percentge of the music traded online be good for Google? Allow people to use their tracks on youtube videos etc.
It seems to me law enforcement and government have twisted the meaning of 'no expectation to privacy' into, 'expect your privacy to be deliberately and continually broken'.
To me, no expectation of privacy means, if i'm walking down the street I might be inadvertantly caught by a tourist taking a photo/home video. Or if I'm having a conversation passersby may overhear. Or I'm having sex in the back seat of the car a passerby (or if I'm unlucky a cop, or even worset a family member) might catch me and take appropriate action. And so on.
Whereas the government (and often the courts!) seem to think it means expect to be followed, evasedropped on and all actions that you do or things that you say be collected, stored, correlated and data-mined.
Well, to me that is the opposite of privacy, not the lack of or 'no expectation' thereof.
Most organisations submitting patents also don't do patent searches before submitting a patent.
Why?
Because of a little thing called "Willful infringement'.
That is, if you are sued for breaching a patent, and that breach is found 'willful', it could treble damages.
One of the tests for willfullness is if someone had knowledge of previous patents. And one aspect of this is if you've seached the patent database. If they DID do patent searches, then they HAVE to have found (so the argument goes), known about, a previous patent. Therefore they have willfully breached a patent.
Therefore if you never do patent searches before embarking on new research or submitting your own patent, it's harder to prove willfullness.
And, as can be seen from the patent numbers, there are MILLIONS of patents. Which means you have to construct keyword searches. What if you got the wrong keywords? Or if your keywords returned 20,000 patents? Do you read every single one of those 20,000 matches to see if they cover what you are trying to patent? I doubt it.
Patent examiners have the same problem. With millions of patents, it's quite possible to return too many matches to practically go through them all. So you try to refine your terms a bit, but hey, the refined terms could actually exclude a previously matching patent that is relevant.
Coudn't the city just erect speed signage directly in front of the camera that blocks its line of sight?
Unless the contract includes a clause that specifically forbids the city (as opposed to private individuals) from blocking the camera or specifically requires the city to keep the line of sight clear from city raised signage/obstacles then they effectively get the cameras turned off it not literally.
that it depends on which point you choose to count the data from.
For example, if you have an ADSL modem plugged into a router, your usage statistics counted by your router probably don't include the PPPoE encapsulation overhead.
So when you transmit a 1KB packet, and receive a 1KB packet, while your router says you've sent 1KB and received 1KB, the ISPs devices at the exchange could see a different data amount. For example, if the PPPoE encapsulation requires 100bytes, the ISP could have you metered as having sent 1.1KB and received 1.1KB. Spread over several million packets, this could have a huge discrepancy when comparing your routers stats vs the ISP provided stats.
Also, your router probably doesn't count dropped/lost packets. If you are receiving more packets/second than your router can handle, it'll start dropping packets. These packets won't be counted by your router as data received, since it's dropped them. But whether your router accepts them or not, they WERE sent by the ISP down your pipe. It's not THEIR problem your hardware was unable to receive them. They sent 10 million 1KB packets down your pipe to you, it doesn't matter if your router accepted only half of them. As far as they are concerned, that's 10MB they've sent you, not the 5MB your router says it's received.
Other situations include the fact that usually a well configured firewall drops any packet sent to you that is not part of a session initiated by you. Unsolicited ping floods, someone probing your system for open ports, even a full on DoS attack could all be dropped by your firewall. If the packet is dropped by your firewall, again in all likelihood the data isn't counted by your router as being received. However since the ISP did send it down your pipe, again they would have counted the data as sent data to you, even if you've rejected it.
I'm not defending the ISPs or excusing deliberate miscalculations, or even those caused by buggy software.
However, there usually is a discrepancy due to where in the pipe the 'probe' is placed to count the data.
I'm in Australia, and here an unlimited plan is a rare beast. I think I've been on some sort of quota for the last 8 or 9 years now. Some good, some bad, some horribly overpriced. So I feel the pain of being quota'ed.
But you also have the opposite effect, of other circumstances leading to an unreasonable sentence.
If in a sate with a 3 strikes law, and convicting someone who was starving of stealing a loaf of bread would result in them being having a mandatory 15 year sentence because of 2 previous offenses, I would like to know this. This is a case where I'd support jury nullification.
Re: Re: Re: USA no different than any other Government
Here's my take on this.
There is a difference between an action to prevent an immediate threat (the nuke going off in 2 hours) against a person that you're sure planted the bomb vs actions against someone who MIGHT be a member of an organization or that MIGHT have information about an organization that is just another lead in a long, involved ongoing investigation.
The problem is that torture seems to have become institutionalized, accepted, part of standard practice. Therefore if in doubt, torture, as you won't get prosecuted for it as it's allowed, legal.
I think it should still be considered an extreme, illegal act.
In the example given, of the bomb. The agents actions in roughing up, lets say torturing, the suspect should be illegal and should be prosecuted. However, upon being found guilty (making the assumption that the jury doesn't use jury nullification and they are found guilty) then any, or all, of the following should occur:
assuming the agent was right and the torture prevented the bomb going off:
1) the sentencing judge should note the mitigating factors and the sentence should be symbolic (e.g. 1 day) or even just time served awaiting trial;
2) the agent should receive a presedential pardon, and even commendation, for their actions.
There are already measures in place, such as the above, for recognizing the rare instance that necessitate extreme acts in extreme immediate emergencies.
Therefore if you absolutely know that a person has information you need to stop an immediate, catastrophic threat, then you can rest assured that you will be taken care of, pardoned. However, if it's just a fishing expedition, or you are mostly sure that this person could provide just a little piece of a long ongoing investigation, then don't do it.
As usual, no alternative is presented to them. Just another variation on "you need to find a new business model".
As the magazine is not a part of the recording industry, why should it know, or even care about, different strategies for the recording industry?
It doesn't take a naval architect or engineer to be standing on the Titanic and say "the ships sinking, do something about it". However it does take an engineer/other experienced naval personnel to work out how to fix it and to implement the fix. It is not the passenger's job, responsibility or duty to know how to fix the leak. But it's pretty obvious to any layman that there IS a leak.
So with the recording industry. While it's pretty obvious to everyone that it's broken and they need to do something to fix it, why should anyone except those IN the recording industry care enough to provide suggestions on how to fix it? Who outside the recording industry gives a damn? Especially when ideas are presented and get labeled immediately as 'unworkable' without even trying. When the ship is sinking don't form a committee to explore the possibilities of beginning an investigation into how to fix it, start working away. Try lots of things until something works or you sink.
Don't keep pretending the problem doesn't exist or that you fix the problem by forcing water to change it's behavior by ordering it not to pour into the hole!
why should we have to BUY a product to protect ourselves?
I agree. I shouldn't have to buy a bike chain, car alarm, burglar alarm, or any type of locking mechanism for my house or my car!
We pay taxes for a reason. Under the mantra of "less regulation" why should we be "forced" to pay a protection tax to a company (your local mob affiliate) for protection.
Again I agree.
I hate having to pay protection to lock manufacturers and locksmiths.
Maybe the government should introduce regulation making it illegal to enter someone's property and take stuff. Or climb into my car and drive off with it. That'd be great! And they should also employ people to enforce those laws!
Re: RE: Fitness first (alive first, fitness second)
yes, thats right the music does provide *something* to the gym experience, so does the carpet, the mats, the instructor, the mirrors, the equipment, the other people, the shop and so on.
So does the manufacturer of the mat charge for every use of that mat? What about the mirrors or other equipment?
Why is it different when a CD is purchased? Make sure they have a valid CD with the track on it for every simultaneous use of that track (e.g. playing the same track simultaneously in 2 different classes requires 2 valid CDs). Why do they have to pay every time an already purchased item, the CD, is played?
but if an author who I respected, love and admire is asking me not to use is characters, and especially not wrote them in a published novel, why not respect is whish?
That is your right and it seems quite the proper thing to do.
However, an author you might respect enough to honor his wishes I might view as a turd. Therefore I may have no respect for them and may not feel in the least compelled to respect their wishes. Which is my right.
This and many comments above about searching your bags etc are rather interesting.
Here in Australia, it is not legal for private individuals/organizations to forcibly search your person.
They can refuse you entry if you do not allow them to search your belongings, or ask you to leave if you are already inside and they ask to search your belongings (and forcibly eject you/call the police if you refuse to leave).
However, not allowing them to search your belongings is not a criminal act, it is merely a breach of contract with the remedy limited to ejecting you/not allowing you in, thus you lose the ticket, no refunds.
And considering the volume of customers going through into movie cinemas, it is simply not practical (from a cost perspective) to inspect more than a small random sampling of customers. So, put the food/drink in your bag, if they ask to inspect your bag and find these goods in there, chuck em in the bin and proceed inside (never seen anyone refused entry after agreeing to dispose of the goods). I've probably been done once in 20 years, going 5-10 times a year, and that was because I had a bottle of coke (TM) in my coat pocket on the side the usher was standing on with half the bottle sticking out. I stood there and drank the coke (TM) and chucked the empty bottle in the bin then proceeded into the cinema.
On the post: Top Photographer On Why He Doesn't Care If His Stuff Is Pirated
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Just because something is the law doesn't make it good or right.
Just because something is against the law doesn't make it bad or wrong.
I break the law all the time. I foccasionally speed. Sometimes (say, on a deserted country highway) I change lanes without indicating. If it's say 3am in the morning and i get a red light in a deserted industrial estate, i'll stop and if no traffic will go through the red light.
OMG all illgal, I am a horrible, bad person for breaking the law!
The law needs to be tempered with common sense. If its not hurting anyone else to 'break' the law, then whats wrong with it? Copyright infringement (not piracy, I don't cruise the high seas performing armed, forceful boardings of vessels and kidnap, murder, rob passengers) hurts no-one.
On the post: And Then There Were Three: Bye, Bye EMI
I thought Google would be interested in buying?
On the post: Supreme Court Considers Constitutionality Of Having People Tracked By GPS All The Time
no expectation of privacy.
To me, no expectation of privacy means, if i'm walking down the street I might be inadvertantly caught by a tourist taking a photo/home video. Or if I'm having a conversation passersby may overhear. Or I'm having sex in the back seat of the car a passerby (or if I'm unlucky a cop, or even worset a family member) might catch me and take appropriate action. And so on.
Whereas the government (and often the courts!) seem to think it means expect to be followed, evasedropped on and all actions that you do or things that you say be collected, stored, correlated and data-mined.
Well, to me that is the opposite of privacy, not the lack of or 'no expectation' thereof.
On the post: So How Do We Fix The Patent System?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Kay..
Most organisations submitting patents also don't do patent searches before submitting a patent.
Why?
Because of a little thing called "Willful infringement'.
That is, if you are sued for breaching a patent, and that breach is found 'willful', it could treble damages.
One of the tests for willfullness is if someone had knowledge of previous patents. And one aspect of this is if you've seached the patent database. If they DID do patent searches, then they HAVE to have found (so the argument goes), known about, a previous patent. Therefore they have willfully breached a patent.
Therefore if you never do patent searches before embarking on new research or submitting your own patent, it's harder to prove willfullness.
And, as can be seen from the patent numbers, there are MILLIONS of patents. Which means you have to construct keyword searches. What if you got the wrong keywords? Or if your keywords returned 20,000 patents? Do you read every single one of those 20,000 matches to see if they cover what you are trying to patent? I doubt it.
Patent examiners have the same problem. With millions of patents, it's quite possible to return too many matches to practically go through them all. So you try to refine your terms a bit, but hey, the refined terms could actually exclude a previously matching patent that is relevant.
On the post: Mattel's Lawsuit To Claim Ownership Of Bratz Comes Back To Bite Big Time: Told To Pay $309 Million
Re: Re: Re: $400 million in legal fees?
Partners at big firms bill $1000+ hour.
On the post: Legal Technicality Forces Houston To Turn Its Redlight Cameras Back On, Even Though It Wants Them Off
Speed signage?
Unless the contract includes a clause that specifically forbids the city (as opposed to private individuals) from blocking the camera or specifically requires the city to keep the line of sight clear from city raised signage/obstacles then they effectively get the cameras turned off it not literally.
On the post: If AT&T Puts A Meter On Your Broadband, But That Meter Is Grossly Inaccurate, Is That Meter Really There?
Re: The thing to remember about metered usage is...
Should be 10GB and 5GB...
On the post: If AT&T Puts A Meter On Your Broadband, But That Meter Is Grossly Inaccurate, Is That Meter Really There?
The thing to remember about metered usage is...
For example, if you have an ADSL modem plugged into a router, your usage statistics counted by your router probably don't include the PPPoE encapsulation overhead.
So when you transmit a 1KB packet, and receive a 1KB packet, while your router says you've sent 1KB and received 1KB, the ISPs devices at the exchange could see a different data amount. For example, if the PPPoE encapsulation requires 100bytes, the ISP could have you metered as having sent 1.1KB and received 1.1KB. Spread over several million packets, this could have a huge discrepancy when comparing your routers stats vs the ISP provided stats.
Also, your router probably doesn't count dropped/lost packets. If you are receiving more packets/second than your router can handle, it'll start dropping packets. These packets won't be counted by your router as data received, since it's dropped them. But whether your router accepts them or not, they WERE sent by the ISP down your pipe. It's not THEIR problem your hardware was unable to receive them. They sent 10 million 1KB packets down your pipe to you, it doesn't matter if your router accepted only half of them. As far as they are concerned, that's 10MB they've sent you, not the 5MB your router says it's received.
Other situations include the fact that usually a well configured firewall drops any packet sent to you that is not part of a session initiated by you. Unsolicited ping floods, someone probing your system for open ports, even a full on DoS attack could all be dropped by your firewall. If the packet is dropped by your firewall, again in all likelihood the data isn't counted by your router as being received. However since the ISP did send it down your pipe, again they would have counted the data as sent data to you, even if you've rejected it.
I'm not defending the ISPs or excusing deliberate miscalculations, or even those caused by buggy software.
However, there usually is a discrepancy due to where in the pipe the 'probe' is placed to count the data.
I'm in Australia, and here an unlimited plan is a rare beast. I think I've been on some sort of quota for the last 8 or 9 years now. Some good, some bad, some horribly overpriced. So I feel the pain of being quota'ed.
On the post: Judge Bans Handing (Factual) Pamphlets To Jurors; Raising First Amendment Issues
Re: Re:
If in a sate with a 3 strikes law, and convicting someone who was starving of stealing a loaf of bread would result in them being having a mandatory 15 year sentence because of 2 previous offenses, I would like to know this. This is a case where I'd support jury nullification.
On the post: Intel Claims DRM'd Chip Is Not DRM, It's Just Copy Protection
Re: Re: Re: Kowtowing
HDCP is not a part of, or a requisite for HDMI.
HDMI is the physical connector and digital signalling standards for transmitting audio and video over a cable.
The digital signalling of video is an enhancement of DVI, as it allows for greater bandwidth.
HDCP is a device level layer (nothing to do with the cable) that adds encryption/authorization.
You can have HDCP over DVI, you can have HDCP over HDMI, hell you can probably have HDCP over ethernet.
You can have DVI and HDMI without HDCP.
On the post: Wikileaks Reveals That The US Won't Comply With Treaty Obligations Concerning Investigations Into CIA Rendition
Re: Re: Re: USA no different than any other Government
There is a difference between an action to prevent an immediate threat (the nuke going off in 2 hours) against a person that you're sure planted the bomb vs actions against someone who MIGHT be a member of an organization or that MIGHT have information about an organization that is just another lead in a long, involved ongoing investigation.
The problem is that torture seems to have become institutionalized, accepted, part of standard practice. Therefore if in doubt, torture, as you won't get prosecuted for it as it's allowed, legal.
I think it should still be considered an extreme, illegal act.
In the example given, of the bomb. The agents actions in roughing up, lets say torturing, the suspect should be illegal and should be prosecuted. However, upon being found guilty (making the assumption that the jury doesn't use jury nullification and they are found guilty) then any, or all, of the following should occur:
assuming the agent was right and the torture prevented the bomb going off:
1) the sentencing judge should note the mitigating factors and the sentence should be symbolic (e.g. 1 day) or even just time served awaiting trial;
2) the agent should receive a presedential pardon, and even commendation, for their actions.
There are already measures in place, such as the above, for recognizing the rare instance that necessitate extreme acts in extreme immediate emergencies.
Therefore if you absolutely know that a person has information you need to stop an immediate, catastrophic threat, then you can rest assured that you will be taken care of, pardoned. However, if it's just a fishing expedition, or you are mostly sure that this person could provide just a little piece of a long ongoing investigation, then don't do it.
On the post: PC Mag Responds To Legacy Recording Industry's 'Complaint' Letter
Re:
As the magazine is not a part of the recording industry, why should it know, or even care about, different strategies for the recording industry?
It doesn't take a naval architect or engineer to be standing on the Titanic and say "the ships sinking, do something about it". However it does take an engineer/other experienced naval personnel to work out how to fix it and to implement the fix. It is not the passenger's job, responsibility or duty to know how to fix the leak. But it's pretty obvious to any layman that there IS a leak.
So with the recording industry. While it's pretty obvious to everyone that it's broken and they need to do something to fix it, why should anyone except those IN the recording industry care enough to provide suggestions on how to fix it? Who outside the recording industry gives a damn? Especially when ideas are presented and get labeled immediately as 'unworkable' without even trying. When the ship is sinking don't form a committee to explore the possibilities of beginning an investigation into how to fix it, start working away. Try lots of things until something works or you sink.
Don't keep pretending the problem doesn't exist or that you fix the problem by forcing water to change it's behavior by ordering it not to pour into the hole!
On the post: DRM Strikes Again: Samsung Blu-ray Firmware Update Means No Warner Or Universal Movies
Re: Re: Re: Re: Here is me
On the post: Clueless Commentators Think That It's Possible To Stop Wikileaks
Re: Just because it may be physically impossible to staunch it...
That is correct.
The informants put their own lives in danger by willfully disclosing information to the US.
Now the consequences of their actions, becoming informants to the US, are coming back to haunt them.
If you don't want to be put on a hit list for being an informant, don't become an informant.
On the post: Help Has Arrived For Australians Worried About 'Spams & Scams' Coming Through The Portal
Re: Unexplored Issues
I agree. I shouldn't have to buy a bike chain, car alarm, burglar alarm, or any type of locking mechanism for my house or my car!
Again I agree.
I hate having to pay protection to lock manufacturers and locksmiths.
Maybe the government should introduce regulation making it illegal to enter someone's property and take stuff. Or climb into my car and drive off with it. That'd be great! And they should also employ people to enforce those laws!
On the post: Australian Gyms Dumping Pop Music After Massive Increase In Royalty Rates
Re: RE: Fitness first (alive first, fitness second)
So does the manufacturer of the mat charge for every use of that mat? What about the mirrors or other equipment?
Why is it different when a CD is purchased? Make sure they have a valid CD with the track on it for every simultaneous use of that track (e.g. playing the same track simultaneously in 2 different classes requires 2 valid CDs). Why do they have to pay every time an already purchased item, the CD, is played?
On the post: Some Fiction About Fan Fiction
Re:
That is your right and it seems quite the proper thing to do.
However, an author you might respect enough to honor his wishes I might view as a turd. Therefore I may have no respect for them and may not feel in the least compelled to respect their wishes. Which is my right.
On the post: Tool Maker Loses Lawsuit For Not Violating Another Company's Patents
Re: Re:
On the post: MPAA Brags About How Awesome The Movie Business Is; Right After It Claims File Sharing Is Destroying The Industry
Re: Re: Re: Best year ever is deceptive...
This and many comments above about searching your bags etc are rather interesting.
Here in Australia, it is not legal for private individuals/organizations to forcibly search your person.
They can refuse you entry if you do not allow them to search your belongings, or ask you to leave if you are already inside and they ask to search your belongings (and forcibly eject you/call the police if you refuse to leave).
However, not allowing them to search your belongings is not a criminal act, it is merely a breach of contract with the remedy limited to ejecting you/not allowing you in, thus you lose the ticket, no refunds. And considering the volume of customers going through into movie cinemas, it is simply not practical (from a cost perspective) to inspect more than a small random sampling of customers. So, put the food/drink in your bag, if they ask to inspect your bag and find these goods in there, chuck em in the bin and proceed inside (never seen anyone refused entry after agreeing to dispose of the goods). I've probably been done once in 20 years, going 5-10 times a year, and that was because I had a bottle of coke (TM) in my coat pocket on the side the usher was standing on with half the bottle sticking out. I stood there and drank the coke (TM) and chucked the empty bottle in the bin then proceeded into the cinema.
On the post: NBC's Delayed Telecasts Show A Company Living In The Last Century
Re:
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