Benjamin Franklin deliberately misspelled "Philadelphia" on some of the first American banknotes, specifically to trip up counterfeiters, and the sources I've read suggest that the idea was original with him (not too surprising for a genius, a printer and a rather irreverent man). But I'd be surprised if that trick would trip up anyone with the means to make microengravings at all.
You hit the nail on the head. If a Coca-cola vending machine accepts my money and gives me Pepsi cola, then in principle I've been defrauded (never mind the fact that I can barely tell them apart). But if it gives me Pepsi free then I have no grounds for complaint even if I'm disappointed. If I really cared about brands of paper towels, and knew one from another, and had a choice of dispenser within one building (none of which is true) I'd still have a hard time arguing that I'd been wronged when I got stuck with an inferior towel.
Article may contain classic logical fallacies. [ancient Greek philosopher, exasperated]
Extensive quotes from uninformed officials and/or celebrities. [person surrounded by microphones, emitting many speech bubbles]
Information in last paragraph may debunk entire article. [reader examining bottom of page with magnifying glass, thought bubble with exclamation mark]
Extreme abuse of statistics. Mathematically literate readers may experience headaches, dizziness. [graph with curve drawn through some points, others crossed out]
No good. As Calvin said, "reading goes faster if you don't sweat comprehension".
I think they should have to write it out (by hand of course) before they can vote for it. Voting against it does not require this, and if the hand-written version doesn't match the official version perfectly then the vote doesn't count.
Pentagon: Give that back!
Wikileaks: You want it? It's right here, just download it.
Pentagon: No, I mean, I want you to give it to me.
Wikileaks: All right, here.
Pentagon: All right... And destroy the copies you have.
Wikileaks: *sigh* All right, there, it's gone, see?
Pentagon: Good... And you don't have any more copies, right? Promise?
Wikileaks: I promise. But there are lots of other copies all over the place, so someone might give me a fresh copy any time. Look, here's one!
Pentagon: Hey! Give me that!
Wikileaks: Sure, here you go. Oh, here's another!
Pentagon: Stop it! Hand it over!
Wikileaks: I destroyed it, see? My hands are empty and-- wait! Look, it was behind your ear!
Pentagon: CUT IT OUT!
A moron in a hurry who uses ticker symbols directly will get into trouble regardless of intent. If you're investing with three-letter symbols in a crowded space it behooves you to get all three of them right (or at least be able to count to three), and if you claim the right to play the stock market you should not ask the law for protection if you fail to do so.
Apart from the laudable drive to solve a technically difficult problem for its own sake, this seems to me like a publicity stunt. The use of lead cars makes it pretty pointless as a technical achievement, they could gather the same data in a series of small road trials, and they don't seem interested in trying to make their system fail, which indicates that his is a demonstration, not an experiment or test.
Driving over any terrain is a difficult task. Driving a vehicle that needs a road requires recognition, discrimination, judgment. Driving in traffic requires social instincts, the ability to make reasonably accurate guesses about what other drivers will do. Driving in a world where a wind-blown plastic bag is not very important but a running child must be avoided at all costs requires something close to animal intelligence.
If they really wanted to develop autonomous vehicles, they'd do it the smart way: start with the rovers they're designing for Mars, the dumb insectoid robots that can scuttle over anything. Then graduate to something that can exploit roads (and still doesn't care about running into things0. Then introduce random moving obstacles of all shapes, sizes and colors, including other robots, and teach the robots not to collide, maybe even to self-organize into efficient traffic patterns.... Operating on the same roads as human beings is a long way down the list.
Re: The "no-fly list" is more dangerous than "terrorists".
'Senator Kennedy was on it! [That] *proves* that the purpose of the list is political intimidation, *not* anything to do with "security".'
No, "T. Kennedy" was on the list. Remember, it is a list of names, and sometimes some other bits of information, not of people. (If that distinction doesn't seem important, you don't understand it.) The addition of that name to the list does not seem to have been politically motivated.
I'm still confused. Let's leave marriage out of this, since it's an abstract entity and it raises a lot of other questions (e.g. the difference between forbidding and not recognizing: "How can you say that we've broken the law without admitting that we are married?").
If the point is to challenge the first law's constitutionality by bringing the case through the court system, then somebody must violate the first law and go to trial. What does the second law have to do with it?
If there's a law against eating fruit, and I want to make it legal to eat oranges, what's the point of passing a second law that forbids eating bananas (but does not, itself, ban oranges)?
"We only copied that first book. Everything else we scrimped and saved for."
All right, I misconstrued what you wrote. But... now we have several scenarios to consider:
If you had not copied the first book, the game would not have been nearly as easy and fun, and you might have dropped it entirely (though I doubt it) and never given another dime to the authors, after that first book.
If copying had been easy and cheap (e.g. your school had continued to allow it, or the library hadn't charged five cents per page -- or was it ten, I forget) you might have bought one copy of everything from then on, for the whole group.
As it happened, further copying was forbidden and/or expensive, so you each bought a copy of everything.
If scanning/copying had been free (maybe even legal) and internet-style sharing had been possible, you might never have bought any of it.
If there had been no such thing as copyright I suppose some other publisher might have undercut TSR on the same material, but publishing in general would have been a very different business so it's not fair to extrapolate from that.
So by chance or design, things worked out perfectly for TSR. Copyright is pretty ineffectual in all of these scenarios, but it's very much like a wish for that perfect scenario, implemented as a law that would actually lead to the first if followed strictly, and to something else entirely if completely ignored or made irrelevant.
A good story and a good point, but in fairness I have to point out:
You shared Todd's book, and later everything else, among a dozen people. So together you bought one copy of everything instead of buying nothing (except that first book). But suppose you had had the internet back then, so that one person could scan a book and complete strangers could download it. Then you'd be sharing each new book not among a dozen people, but among thousands. Compare those sales to what the few, the rich, the Todds would have bought if sharing were magically forbidden.
You can still make a case that Todd wouldn't have bought any of the later books if none of his friends wanted to play the game because they couldn't afford it, but the new technology does change the equation.
(None of which changes my disgust at their releasing a new edition of the Dungeon Master's Guide with no change except vastly inferior new cover art. And you could write a whole article about how their restrictive policy on lead miniature manufacture harmed their own market and detracted from the game, or how they themselves ripped off copyrighted Tolkien works, or... oh, never mind.)
How can a state law make it legal to violate a federal law? I was under the (perhaps naive) impression that laws forbid things, and that a given act either violates a given law or doesn't (grey areas and bad language notwithstanding), and that a law applies until it is amended or repealed.
I'm sorry, this is just not a good analogy. For one thing, an act (a journey) corresponds to an object (a copy of a work) which always makes things difficult. Also there's no sensible analogue for giving a copy to someone else, or duplicating one copy of a work instead of another copy of the same work (a very important distinction). And I've never heard of this "obligation to make provision for fair use" before, and don't have a clear idea of what it is.
'Your "problem" could be solved by making DRM and copyright law mutually exclusive. This would mean that works protected by DRM would be protected only by the DRM. There would be no anti-circumvention protection and anything "liberated" from DRM would enter the public domain. Then you could protect your work (or even a public domain work that you distribute) with DRM OR you could protect it with copyright - but not both.'
So... I point out that a proposed law would be bad, and your solution is to not pass the law-- and also eliminate something unrelated (i.e. copyright) that you don't like.
I honestly can't follow your argument. If material in the public domain CANNOT be locked up, fine, there's no problem (it was PaulT's phrase, not mine). If you mean something else then you must distinguish between a work and a copy of the work, otherwise you're just talking nonsense.
(As for "yes it should be illegal", as I explained that's irrelevant, since the proposed law would not forbid it.)
"If you own some land and your business model is to charge people for access to the land that does not give you the right to block a public right of way that runs across the land. The anti-DRM law proposed to protect the public domain is exactly analogous..."
If I own a copy of a work in the public domain, I am not required to show it to anyone. I am free to lock it up, to show it to some people but not others, or even to destroy it. In this analogy, does the land correspond to the Sistine Chapel ceiling itself, or my photo of the ceiling? Or the picture on the ceiling, independent of the medium (the actual plaster and paint, or paper and toner)? Is the right of way your right to duplicate your photo of the ceiling? Or my obligation to give you a copy of my photo on demand? Is the tollbooth my policy of not letting people into my house to look at my photo? Or my DRM on the copy that I sold you? Or a draconian law that forbids people to duplicate photos of the ceiling without my permission?
The analogy is interesting, but I wouldn't call it exact.
"As long as you are in the content business, a business built entirely upon legal shenanigans which allow you to sell an infinite good, you have to justify any business decision the public asks you [to]."
What if I don't? I'll be locked up in the gingerbread jail? Or are you saying that I may not make business decisions you don't like?
By your tard logic, BP could just walk away from the oil spill and say it was their business decision.
So... not answering snarky demands for explanations for a inferior product design is the same as spilling millions of barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. And you think my logic is weak.
'Your entire argument can be distilled down to - "I don't like the law because it doesn't let me do something I want to."'
Your distillation is inaccurate, but I despair of getting that point across.
On the post: Do US Visa Documents Have A Typo?
He invented everything.
On the post: If You Don't Get The Matching Brand Paper Towel Out Of A Dispenser In A Restroom... Is That Trademark Infringement?
Re: Who is the customer?
On the post: Journalism Warning Labels: This Article Is Just A Press Release Copied & Pasted
a few more I'd like to see
Article may contain classic logical fallacies. [ancient Greek philosopher, exasperated]
Extensive quotes from uninformed officials and/or celebrities. [person surrounded by microphones, emitting many speech bubbles]
Information in last paragraph may debunk entire article. [reader examining bottom of page with magnifying glass, thought bubble with exclamation mark]
Extreme abuse of statistics. Mathematically literate readers may experience headaches, dizziness. [graph with curve drawn through some points, others crossed out]
Vague language throughout. [clouds]
On the post: Congress About To Pass 'The ______Act of____' (These Are The People We Elect?)
Re: read it
I think they should have to write it out (by hand of course) before they can vote for it. Voting against it does not require this, and if the hand-written version doesn't match the official version perfectly then the vote doesn't count.
On the post: Pentagon Demands Wikileaks 'Returns' Leaked Documents; Does It Not Know How Digital Documents Work?
school days
Wikileaks: You want it? It's right here, just download it.
Pentagon: No, I mean, I want you to give it to me.
Wikileaks: All right, here.
Pentagon: All right... And destroy the copies you have.
Wikileaks: *sigh* All right, there, it's gone, see?
Pentagon: Good... And you don't have any more copies, right? Promise?
Wikileaks: I promise. But there are lots of other copies all over the place, so someone might give me a fresh copy any time. Look, here's one!
Pentagon: Hey! Give me that!
Wikileaks: Sure, here you go. Oh, here's another!
Pentagon: Stop it! Hand it over!
Wikileaks: I destroyed it, see? My hands are empty and-- wait! Look, it was behind your ear!
Pentagon: CUT IT OUT!
On the post: Are Investment Ticker Symbols Covered By Trademark Law?
50000 shares Akron Toaster and Tunafish
On the post: Massachusetts May Be The First To Get A Right To Repair Law
Re: Re: dumb question
On the post: Autonomous Vehicle Begins Drive From Italy To China
solving the wrong problem
Driving over any terrain is a difficult task. Driving a vehicle that needs a road requires recognition, discrimination, judgment. Driving in traffic requires social instincts, the ability to make reasonably accurate guesses about what other drivers will do. Driving in a world where a wind-blown plastic bag is not very important but a running child must be avoided at all costs requires something close to animal intelligence.
If they really wanted to develop autonomous vehicles, they'd do it the smart way: start with the rovers they're designing for Mars, the dumb insectoid robots that can scuttle over anything. Then graduate to something that can exploit roads (and still doesn't care about running into things0. Then introduce random moving obstacles of all shapes, sizes and colors, including other robots, and teach the robots not to collide, maybe even to self-organize into efficient traffic patterns.... Operating on the same roads as human beings is a long way down the list.
On the post: Time To Get Rid Of No Fly List Altogether?
still has some catching up to do
This piece seemed like a sloppy argument for a good idea. This sentence in particular caught my eye:
*sigh* If someone whose name is on the list gets on a plane, the likelihood of his wanting to take it over or crash it is very close to zero.
On the post: Time To Get Rid Of No Fly List Altogether?
Re: The "no-fly list" is more dangerous than "terrorists".
No, "T. Kennedy" was on the list. Remember, it is a list of names, and sometimes some other bits of information, not of people. (If that distinction doesn't seem important, you don't understand it.) The addition of that name to the list does not seem to have been politically motivated.
On the post: Massachusetts May Be The First To Get A Right To Repair Law
Re: Re: dumb question
If the point is to challenge the first law's constitutionality by bringing the case through the court system, then somebody must violate the first law and go to trial. What does the second law have to do with it?
If there's a law against eating fruit, and I want to make it legal to eat oranges, what's the point of passing a second law that forbids eating bananas (but does not, itself, ban oranges)?
On the post: Deutsche Bank Report Notes That It's Time To Rethink Copyright
Re: Re: Re: A copyright tale:
All right, I misconstrued what you wrote. But... now we have several scenarios to consider:
If you had not copied the first book, the game would not have been nearly as easy and fun, and you might have dropped it entirely (though I doubt it) and never given another dime to the authors, after that first book.
If copying had been easy and cheap (e.g. your school had continued to allow it, or the library hadn't charged five cents per page -- or was it ten, I forget) you might have bought one copy of everything from then on, for the whole group.
As it happened, further copying was forbidden and/or expensive, so you each bought a copy of everything.
If scanning/copying had been free (maybe even legal) and internet-style sharing had been possible, you might never have bought any of it.
If there had been no such thing as copyright I suppose some other publisher might have undercut TSR on the same material, but publishing in general would have been a very different business so it's not fair to extrapolate from that.
So by chance or design, things worked out perfectly for TSR. Copyright is pretty ineffectual in all of these scenarios, but it's very much like a wish for that perfect scenario, implemented as a law that would actually lead to the first if followed strictly, and to something else entirely if completely ignored or made irrelevant.
On the post: Deutsche Bank Report Notes That It's Time To Rethink Copyright
Re: A copyright tale:
You shared Todd's book, and later everything else, among a dozen people. So together you bought one copy of everything instead of buying nothing (except that first book). But suppose you had had the internet back then, so that one person could scan a book and complete strangers could download it. Then you'd be sharing each new book not among a dozen people, but among thousands. Compare those sales to what the few, the rich, the Todds would have bought if sharing were magically forbidden.
You can still make a case that Todd wouldn't have bought any of the later books if none of his friends wanted to play the game because they couldn't afford it, but the new technology does change the equation.
(None of which changes my disgust at their releasing a new edition of the Dungeon Master's Guide with no change except vastly inferior new cover art. And you could write a whole article about how their restrictive policy on lead miniature manufacture harmed their own market and detracted from the game, or how they themselves ripped off copyrighted Tolkien works, or... oh, never mind.)
On the post: Massachusetts May Be The First To Get A Right To Repair Law
dumb question
On the post: Brazil's Copyright Reform Proposal: Penalties For Hindering Fair Use Or The Public Domain
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: lights please
On the post: Brazil's Copyright Reform Proposal: Penalties For Hindering Fair Use Or The Public Domain
Re:
On the post: Brazil's Copyright Reform Proposal: Penalties For Hindering Fair Use Or The Public Domain
Re: Re: lights please
So... I point out that a proposed law would be bad, and your solution is to not pass the law-- and also eliminate something unrelated (i.e. copyright) that you don't like.
On the post: Brazil's Copyright Reform Proposal: Penalties For Hindering Fair Use Or The Public Domain
Re: Re: Re: Re: lights please
(As for "yes it should be illegal", as I explained that's irrelevant, since the proposed law would not forbid it.)
On the post: Brazil's Copyright Reform Proposal: Penalties For Hindering Fair Use Or The Public Domain
Re: Re: Re: Re: lights please
If I own a copy of a work in the public domain, I am not required to show it to anyone. I am free to lock it up, to show it to some people but not others, or even to destroy it. In this analogy, does the land correspond to the Sistine Chapel ceiling itself, or my photo of the ceiling? Or the picture on the ceiling, independent of the medium (the actual plaster and paint, or paper and toner)? Is the right of way your right to duplicate your photo of the ceiling? Or my obligation to give you a copy of my photo on demand? Is the tollbooth my policy of not letting people into my house to look at my photo? Or my DRM on the copy that I sold you? Or a draconian law that forbids people to duplicate photos of the ceiling without my permission?
The analogy is interesting, but I wouldn't call it exact.
On the post: Brazil's Copyright Reform Proposal: Penalties For Hindering Fair Use Or The Public Domain
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: lights please
What if I don't? I'll be locked up in the gingerbread jail? Or are you saying that I may not make business decisions you don't like?
By your tard logic, BP could just walk away from the oil spill and say it was their business decision.
So... not answering snarky demands for explanations for a inferior product design is the same as spilling millions of barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. And you think my logic is weak.
'Your entire argument can be distilled down to - "I don't like the law because it doesn't let me do something I want to."'
Your distillation is inaccurate, but I despair of getting that point across.
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