No, everyone has kissed and made up now since MS put their C# stuff in an open source license that's actually recognized by everyone but the GNU extremists who insist on calling Linux GNU-Linux or some such nonsense.
As GNU hasn't got their kernel a quarter done yet I don't think they're in any position to lay any claim on Linux as possibly being theirs. Just as Linus Torvalds who is heartily sick of it. And as he's the owner of the Linux trade mark he's sent off the manditory letter to GNU to ask them to stop it to protect the mark but hasn't gone flying into the courts.
Maybe because he isn't an American and sees a pot of gold at the other end of the lawsuit rainbow. :)
He's not an "official" peer of the realm. Thank God and Queen Elizabeth.
If he was he'd be addressed as "My Lord" or the more widely used "M'Lord".
Right now he's more like "M'Nit". "He's a bloody nit" in British English means he's stupid, a fool, a moron, a complete ass or any combination of those that may apply.
I'd also hazard a guess that he's just blown whatever street cred he once may have had.
I don't think they'd rejected it yet and the Mexican Congress is vastly more independent of the Mexican president that at least one poster here seems to think.
The way Mexico and Canada are "inside" the negotiations is to sit quietly outside the door sipping gruel. I think they're allowed to say "can I have some more, sir" but even that's a stretch.
The technical term for this arrangement is called "seats in the peanut gallery" where they can be completely ignored.
Not that you care because you're too busy whining and being snarky about someone else you think is being whiny and snarky to notice that barcodeart.com has been around a lot longer than just the past couple of weeks. If anything he added a page which, I'm sure is same one he put up on the "infringing" site and Close has seen and approved of what was said there.
We wouldn't all KNOW a lawyer who might advise Close to fire off nastygram after telling him that if he doesn't sue he'll lose both his copyright protection and whatever trademark he might have?
Entirely possible. For free or for a licensing fee or by a granting the output of the filter if Close doesn't think it's up to his standards some variety of Creative Commons Attribution license, in this case I'd suspect no commercial use and have had Blake put the license widget on a corner of the filtered work along with Close's name and make sure the filter uses a watermark layer as well.
Close keeps his copyright, which he would have anyway, gains control over the uses of the results of the via the Creative Commons License and takes away any commercial value some twerp might think it has through the watermarks and the use of the NC switch on the CC license.
There were and still are lots of avenues other than threatening a lawsuit.
All Close may have done is to have set off the Streisand Effect where the filter, if it's in the wild now, starts getting used again off line before posting the results and suddenly the world is awash with Close works run through the darned thing. Or, now that this has happened, a far superior filter will start making the rounds. One that works in The GIMP, Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro. I'd rather that didn't happen but I'd be blind, deaf and dumb if I didn't say that very soon something will surface.
I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that the filter is already out there in the wild. So while Blake may have taken it off line after what's happened it'll start popping up elsewhere.
Close is better served and would have been better served putting a zipper on it because it's out of both Blake's and his control in the event that it is.
All he's done is communicate Chuck Close's desires and wants, which is to day that he doesn't want to see collages etc of his art reproduced, mixed and otherwise "degraded" by art made using software.
If anyone is whinging it's Close.
Blake only passed on, in point form, what he and Close had discussed. To go by the emails Close has seen what's there and approved of it.
Blake is right in his assertion of a generational divide on how art is made between how Close sees it and how he sees it. I suspect many other "traditional" painters do as well.
Let's remember Close himself bases his work on portrait photos which, I assume, he had permission to use as the professional photographer who took the portrait would be the copyright owner of those. After this I hope he did.
If they let the public in then the peasants....ahhhhhh...public might attack the nobility and the barons with pitchforks of flaming hay at the Capitol and the courtiers in the White House!
And then who knows what they might do! They might even remind the likes of Barclays Bank and others to stop screwing around with their money, loaned to them in deposit accounts and remember who it belongs to. Radical stuff there! Can't have that!
They might tell we nobles and barons that we can't have a war on endlessly borrowed money unless we actually have to declare that there is one instead of a "police action" stuff like that! Can't do that either..it would cramp our style! You mean we'd actually tell Outer Slobbovia that our troops near the border aren't having an exercise but will invade in the next 48 hours if they don't let us use the washrooms and, by the way, write the same IP laws we have?
You're NOT serious are you?
WHAT?
You are????????
DADDDDYYYY...the peassants are saying bad things and bullying me!!!...DADDDDDDDDYYYYY!!!!
There really hasn't been much to debate since you bring nothing new to the table, no new "evidence" to back your position, no new insight, no new.....
Starting to get it?
A debate requires that the two people engaged have some commitment to actually listening to one another with minds a whole lot more open than a rusty steel leg hold trap which, given what you bring here pretty much eliminates you.
OK, the law is on your side. Has that stopped piracy?
No.
Will it?
No.
Does that negate studies that clearly show that when an artist's material is pirated that sales through "traditional" channels increase?
No.
Does that mean the travesty we now know as copyright is a good thing and comes anywhere near close to its original states goals in the UK or US other than to make more money for distributors of the work than the creators in the vast, vast majority of cases?
No.
You've got the law on your side. Bully for you.
Does that make the law right?
No.
It just means that it's time for the citizenry to fight harder to get copyright and patent law to more reflect their unoriginal goals than the corrupt steaming mass of filth they've become.
And it takes a few more Courts like the Supreme Court of Canada to make it clear to maximalists that the user/consumers of material covered by copyright have rights too.
A ruling, by the way, that doesn't condone piracy one little bit except that maximalists having nothing better to complain about and far less educated on the law and the issues than they'll ever be, revert to screaming "It's MINE" and "you can't do that.....it's PIRACY!!!"
Put another way there has been an "entertainment industry" since modern man appeared, and probably long before, and will continue to be when we evolve to the next level of, say "homo internetus" or something similar.
Our nearest primate relatives seek to play and entertain each other as well, so we come by it all honestly.
Cats play with and entertain their nearest feline friends, dogs do the same though it's much easier to see because their not the loners cats are supposed to be.
In adults of all social mammals play for its own sake is commonplace. It probably is in other species who are social. Birds play for the hell of it. Being the true "last of the dinosaurs" it's a good indication that social dinosaurs did too.
So the "entertainment industry" is cross species, timeless and common among higher orders of life it seems.
None of that changes the fact that T-Rex would have used humans as toothpicks but remember they were social too and that their closest descendant is the common barnyard chicken.
So if they start getting enormous again and suddenly sprout very sharp teeth we humans may have to beware!
Even if the attache is only moving from one department to another and otherwise changes little you'd think someone would have figured out that Lamar Smith is just the wrong guy to sponsor this. I realize that chairing the Committee gives Smith a lot of priviledges but Smith's sponsorship simply raises a really, really bad smell around it.
Reading the article you link to it's best to keep some of the largest companies on the planet out of technical decision making, too. Certainly in the area of security.
The results are the same. Particularly in the realm of spooks and others. While the goal may be and is the protection of the state the thinly disguised goal it to increase the budget and preserve and expand the bureaucracy. The best way to do that is scare stories which are so unbelievable to practitioners of network security that they become laughable. But it works on technically ignorant upper management or congresscritters or others of the genus legislatoris.
Then having eaten their own kibble so long the equally ignorant spooks hire someone to implement the system, naturally the lowest bidder.
Is it a surprise that iTunes or YouTube have better security than the networks that protect the state? At least iTunes and YouTube have technically adept and knowledgeable people working on the security side of things. There are some good things to say about guys or gals who keep their pens in plastic pocket protectors, you know. Even if they make mistakes they know what they're doing. They speak the same language as crackers do, can communicate with them if need be and, while the idea is to keep them out, admire the ingenuity, ability and incredible skill that goes into high end malware.
Given the government's record on such things I don't want them poking about in my communications, violating my privacy and all the things they say they need to keep my (insert country here)'s networks secure. Why would I trust government organizations who can't secure their own networks, laptops, smart phones and so on? And why would I voluntarily supply them with enough information to identify me and probably my entire extended family?
I'm just not that crazy.
If another country wants to break into American (or Canadian) networks and finds they can do it without breaking a sweat and these networks, fully aware of the problem, don't or can't do a thing about it it's not time to fund them further it's time to fire them and get someone in who can do the job.
Oh, and provide a smoke screen right out of Gilligan's Island about how easy it would be for Anonymous to break into the power grid one pole at time when they know the real problem is a cracker can take over the grid cracking into power stations by the bushel
Re: Maybe YOUR Gov't... Not the one I give consent to govern...
You see there's a bit of a problem with your statement they'd better do it for their own good.
The changeover in the US Senate is low to almost non existent, the House of Representatives is almost as bad due to wholesale gerrymandering so the politicians are, rightly, unconcerned about finding themselves without jobs en masse when they wake up the morning after the November elections.
For all that we're considered nice people without a bad thing to say about our politicians by many Americans who have never heard us grumble about our federal or provincial governments and what and unbelievable bunch of congenital morons they are or had a look as editorial cartoonists such as Aslin. Our cartoonists arm themselves with brushes that more resemble spears and japanese swords than pencils.
Not only that we've also cleaned House quite literally twice in the last 25 years and come close a time or two in between. The 1992 (?) federal election sent the Federal Progressive Conservative Party into a long, well earned oblivion. Last year we sent the Federal Liberal Party into what, with any luck, will be a nearly permanent oblivion of the third party in the House of Commons. With even better luck one day into fourth place. They've more than earned it. Extinction would be even better.
We do the same thing in Provincial legislatures, too.
So our politicians are quite aware of the electorate's ability and willingness to send them on long term unemployment. (Unless you were a cabinet minister of course.)
We're snarky, you see.
For all the legitimate complaining about the US Congress many of we Canadians are amazed that the US electorate won't or can't be bothered to do the same thing.
It's far and away the best way to send them the message short of armed revolt. That's not a good option in either country as the government controls the military who, like it or not, are better armed than any of us are. :)
In North America cell rates and all that accompany them were set high in order to "establish" the industry. Put another way, to subsidize companies to build out their networks.
"Socialist" Europe, by and large, issued licenses, set rates low to ensure there were consumers there and told the licensees they could sink or swim on their own.
Europe and most other global markets continue with the model of here's the license now have fun, here's what you can charge and if you can't make a profit too damned bad.
You do realize that in most places in Africa phone rates are much lower than in North America, don't you? :)
Meanwhile the FCC and CRTC are still in subsidize mode as if, for example, TELUS and Bell Canada need a subsidy in Canada or Verizon and AT&T need one in the States. Both countries are becoming classic cases of regulatory capture.
The funny thing is that there hasn't been a consumer revolt of any notable extent in either country though the issues are the same in each. It's as if we're waiting for the other guy to do it. "Let's wait for the Canucks to take the lead on this one". "Nahhh, we want to wait for the Yanks."
Hint to the folks on both sides of the border. The North American telecom system is a single market and single system. That's why we all have 10 digit dialing, the same standards for transmission and stuff, the same places doing the same network clocking. Two locations in the US and one in Canada..if the system loses one or two, it stays up on the third one.
My only question is, why are we, as comsumers, putting up with this nonsense? Corrupt politicans is a good answer on both sides but there also seems to be this blindness that tells us the FCC and CRTC are there to look after the customers of monster telcos when, in fact, they're in the service of the monster telcos.
Free, in the download, pirate, whatever sense is that it's not the easiest thing in the world to do. Worth it in many ways to many people but not as easy as the doomsayers seem to think Not that hard either.
Spotify competes with that simply by streaming what its customers want. All perfectly legal and above board.
As Mike has said over and over again, you can compete with free by living by the mantra of "give the people what they want". And, in this case, charging for the convenience of it all. For the recording industry it pays them handsomely, too.
I'm sure someone will find something bad about it. Look hard enough and you always can. Experience seems to show that it's a win all the way around, imperfectly I'm sure but everything is imperfect.
It seems better than what preceded it by a long shot though.
On the post: Novell's WordPerfect Antitrust Lawsuit Against Microsoft Over Windows 95 Dismissed (Yes, This Is A 2012 Post)
Re: Re:
As GNU hasn't got their kernel a quarter done yet I don't think they're in any position to lay any claim on Linux as possibly being theirs. Just as Linus Torvalds who is heartily sick of it. And as he's the owner of the Linux trade mark he's sent off the manditory letter to GNU to ask them to stop it to protect the mark but hasn't gone flying into the courts.
Maybe because he isn't an American and sees a pot of gold at the other end of the lawsuit rainbow. :)
On the post: Dan Bull: Censored By Copyright For Protesting Being Censored By Copyright
Re: The Royal We
If he was he'd be addressed as "My Lord" or the more widely used "M'Lord".
Right now he's more like "M'Nit". "He's a bloody nit" in British English means he's stupid, a fool, a moron, a complete ass or any combination of those that may apply.
I'd also hazard a guess that he's just blown whatever street cred he once may have had.
You Tube has too.
On the post: Mexico's IP Office Surprised Its Congress By Signing ACTA, And Now Hopes To Win Their Support
Re:
On the post: Mexico's IP Office Surprised Its Congress By Signing ACTA, And Now Hopes To Win Their Support
Re:
The technical term for this arrangement is called "seats in the peanut gallery" where they can be completely ignored.
On the post: Mexico's IP Office Surprised Its Congress By Signing ACTA, And Now Hopes To Win Their Support
Re: Bridge
There's a bit of a difference.
On the post: Chuck Close Succeeds In Stifling A Creative Homage... But Only For Another 100 Years Or So!
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Go have some more whine with your lunch please :)
On the post: Chuck Close Succeeds In Stifling A Creative Homage... But Only For Another 100 Years Or So!
Re: Re: Re: Re: What Whine?
On the post: Chuck Close Succeeds In Stifling A Creative Homage... But Only For Another 100 Years Or So!
Re: Re: Re:
Does the name Charles Carreon ring any bells? :)
On the post: Chuck Close Succeeds In Stifling A Creative Homage... But Only For Another 100 Years Or So!
Re:
Close keeps his copyright, which he would have anyway, gains control over the uses of the results of the via the Creative Commons License and takes away any commercial value some twerp might think it has through the watermarks and the use of the NC switch on the CC license.
There were and still are lots of avenues other than threatening a lawsuit.
All Close may have done is to have set off the Streisand Effect where the filter, if it's in the wild now, starts getting used again off line before posting the results and suddenly the world is awash with Close works run through the darned thing. Or, now that this has happened, a far superior filter will start making the rounds. One that works in The GIMP, Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro. I'd rather that didn't happen but I'd be blind, deaf and dumb if I didn't say that very soon something will surface.
On the post: Chuck Close Succeeds In Stifling A Creative Homage... But Only For Another 100 Years Or So!
Re: Re: Making a new one
Close is better served and would have been better served putting a zipper on it because it's out of both Blake's and his control in the event that it is.
On the post: Chuck Close Succeeds In Stifling A Creative Homage... But Only For Another 100 Years Or So!
Re: Re: What Whine?
If anyone is whinging it's Close.
Blake only passed on, in point form, what he and Close had discussed. To go by the emails Close has seen what's there and approved of it.
Blake is right in his assertion of a generational divide on how art is made between how Close sees it and how he sees it. I suspect many other "traditional" painters do as well.
Let's remember Close himself bases his work on portrait photos which, I assume, he had permission to use as the professional photographer who took the portrait would be the copyright owner of those. After this I hope he did.
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
The PUBLIC?
And then who knows what they might do! They might even remind the likes of Barclays Bank and others to stop screwing around with their money, loaned to them in deposit accounts and remember who it belongs to. Radical stuff there! Can't have that!
They might tell we nobles and barons that we can't have a war on endlessly borrowed money unless we actually have to declare that there is one instead of a "police action" stuff like that! Can't do that either..it would cramp our style! You mean we'd actually tell Outer Slobbovia that our troops near the border aren't having an exercise but will invade in the next 48 hours if they don't let us use the washrooms and, by the way, write the same IP laws we have?
You're NOT serious are you?
WHAT?
You are????????
DADDDDYYYY...the peassants are saying bad things and bullying me!!!...DADDDDDDDDYYYYY!!!!
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Re: Re: Re:
Starting to get it?
A debate requires that the two people engaged have some commitment to actually listening to one another with minds a whole lot more open than a rusty steel leg hold trap which, given what you bring here pretty much eliminates you.
OK, the law is on your side. Has that stopped piracy?
No.
Will it?
No.
Does that negate studies that clearly show that when an artist's material is pirated that sales through "traditional" channels increase?
No.
Does that mean the travesty we now know as copyright is a good thing and comes anywhere near close to its original states goals in the UK or US other than to make more money for distributors of the work than the creators in the vast, vast majority of cases?
No.
You've got the law on your side. Bully for you.
Does that make the law right?
No.
It just means that it's time for the citizenry to fight harder to get copyright and patent law to more reflect their unoriginal goals than the corrupt steaming mass of filth they've become.
And it takes a few more Courts like the Supreme Court of Canada to make it clear to maximalists that the user/consumers of material covered by copyright have rights too.
A ruling, by the way, that doesn't condone piracy one little bit except that maximalists having nothing better to complain about and far less educated on the law and the issues than they'll ever be, revert to screaming "It's MINE" and "you can't do that.....it's PIRACY!!!"
On the post: If You Behave Like Your Own Fans Despise You, They Probably Will
The Entertainment "Industry" has always existed
Our nearest primate relatives seek to play and entertain each other as well, so we come by it all honestly.
Cats play with and entertain their nearest feline friends, dogs do the same though it's much easier to see because their not the loners cats are supposed to be.
In adults of all social mammals play for its own sake is commonplace. It probably is in other species who are social. Birds play for the hell of it. Being the true "last of the dinosaurs" it's a good indication that social dinosaurs did too.
So the "entertainment industry" is cross species, timeless and common among higher orders of life it seems.
None of that changes the fact that T-Rex would have used humans as toothpicks but remember they were social too and that their closest descendant is the common barnyard chicken.
So if they start getting enormous again and suddenly sprout very sharp teeth we humans may have to beware!
On the post: Wendy Cockcroft's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re:
On the post: Is The Six Strikes Plan Being Delayed Because ISPs Are Pushing Back Against Hollywood Demands?
On the post: The Public Isn't Buying What The Feds Are Selling When It Comes To Cybersecurity Legislation
Re: (no)PI, (no)Clue
That shouldn't surprise anyone. Large corporations employ thousands of bureaucrats, mostly known as middle management, as risk averse and as tied to procedures written down somewhere and to the bureaucratic principle of protecting and expanding their influence. Also known as "When In Doubt Mumble".
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_16?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywor ds=when+in+doubt+mumble&sprefix=When+In+Doubt+Mu%2Cstripbooks%2C360
The results are the same. Particularly in the realm of spooks and others. While the goal may be and is the protection of the state the thinly disguised goal it to increase the budget and preserve and expand the bureaucracy. The best way to do that is scare stories which are so unbelievable to practitioners of network security that they become laughable. But it works on technically ignorant upper management or congresscritters or others of the genus legislatoris.
Then having eaten their own kibble so long the equally ignorant spooks hire someone to implement the system, naturally the lowest bidder.
Is it a surprise that iTunes or YouTube have better security than the networks that protect the state? At least iTunes and YouTube have technically adept and knowledgeable people working on the security side of things. There are some good things to say about guys or gals who keep their pens in plastic pocket protectors, you know. Even if they make mistakes they know what they're doing. They speak the same language as crackers do, can communicate with them if need be and, while the idea is to keep them out, admire the ingenuity, ability and incredible skill that goes into high end malware.
Given the government's record on such things I don't want them poking about in my communications, violating my privacy and all the things they say they need to keep my (insert country here)'s networks secure. Why would I trust government organizations who can't secure their own networks, laptops, smart phones and so on? And why would I voluntarily supply them with enough information to identify me and probably my entire extended family?
I'm just not that crazy.
If another country wants to break into American (or Canadian) networks and finds they can do it without breaking a sweat and these networks, fully aware of the problem, don't or can't do a thing about it it's not time to fund them further it's time to fire them and get someone in who can do the job.
Oh, and provide a smoke screen right out of Gilligan's Island about how easy it would be for Anonymous to break into the power grid one pole at time when they know the real problem is a cracker can take over the grid cracking into power stations by the bushel
Gimme a break.
On the post: The Public Isn't Buying What The Feds Are Selling When It Comes To Cybersecurity Legislation
Re: Maybe YOUR Gov't... Not the one I give consent to govern...
The changeover in the US Senate is low to almost non existent, the House of Representatives is almost as bad due to wholesale gerrymandering so the politicians are, rightly, unconcerned about finding themselves without jobs en masse when they wake up the morning after the November elections.
For all that we're considered nice people without a bad thing to say about our politicians by many Americans who have never heard us grumble about our federal or provincial governments and what and unbelievable bunch of congenital morons they are or had a look as editorial cartoonists such as Aslin. Our cartoonists arm themselves with brushes that more resemble spears and japanese swords than pencils.
Not only that we've also cleaned House quite literally twice in the last 25 years and come close a time or two in between. The 1992 (?) federal election sent the Federal Progressive Conservative Party into a long, well earned oblivion. Last year we sent the Federal Liberal Party into what, with any luck, will be a nearly permanent oblivion of the third party in the House of Commons. With even better luck one day into fourth place. They've more than earned it. Extinction would be even better.
We do the same thing in Provincial legislatures, too.
So our politicians are quite aware of the electorate's ability and willingness to send them on long term unemployment. (Unless you were a cabinet minister of course.)
We're snarky, you see.
For all the legitimate complaining about the US Congress many of we Canadians are amazed that the US electorate won't or can't be bothered to do the same thing.
It's far and away the best way to send them the message short of armed revolt. That's not a good option in either country as the government controls the military who, like it or not, are better armed than any of us are. :)
On the post: The Swedish Experiment: Spotify Helps Recording Industry Make Lots Of Money
Re: Sorry to burst the bubble...
"Socialist" Europe, by and large, issued licenses, set rates low to ensure there were consumers there and told the licensees they could sink or swim on their own.
Europe and most other global markets continue with the model of here's the license now have fun, here's what you can charge and if you can't make a profit too damned bad.
You do realize that in most places in Africa phone rates are much lower than in North America, don't you? :)
Meanwhile the FCC and CRTC are still in subsidize mode as if, for example, TELUS and Bell Canada need a subsidy in Canada or Verizon and AT&T need one in the States. Both countries are becoming classic cases of regulatory capture.
The funny thing is that there hasn't been a consumer revolt of any notable extent in either country though the issues are the same in each. It's as if we're waiting for the other guy to do it. "Let's wait for the Canucks to take the lead on this one". "Nahhh, we want to wait for the Yanks."
Hint to the folks on both sides of the border. The North American telecom system is a single market and single system. That's why we all have 10 digit dialing, the same standards for transmission and stuff, the same places doing the same network clocking. Two locations in the US and one in Canada..if the system loses one or two, it stays up on the third one.
My only question is, why are we, as comsumers, putting up with this nonsense? Corrupt politicans is a good answer on both sides but there also seems to be this blindness that tells us the FCC and CRTC are there to look after the customers of monster telcos when, in fact, they're in the service of the monster telcos.
On the post: The Swedish Experiment: Spotify Helps Recording Industry Make Lots Of Money
Spotify competes with that simply by streaming what its customers want. All perfectly legal and above board.
As Mike has said over and over again, you can compete with free by living by the mantra of "give the people what they want". And, in this case, charging for the convenience of it all. For the recording industry it pays them handsomely, too.
I'm sure someone will find something bad about it. Look hard enough and you always can. Experience seems to show that it's a win all the way around, imperfectly I'm sure but everything is imperfect.
It seems better than what preceded it by a long shot though.
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