Another thing the feds seem to be ignoring (maybe they're not, but it doesn't sound promising), is that because Roberts exposed that he could control a real aircraft means that he potentially saved real lives. That definitely outweighs the risk he took, especially because he already tried to go through the proper channels. If he had simply given up, and any terrorists had found this vulnerability, this entire news story would instead be about how planes were smashed into buildings again.
You keep mentioning this, but no civilian had access to those documents, so to be in a position to even leak them in the first place, you are, by definition, subject to UMCJ.
And when those documents detail crimes against humanity, you now have a dilemma: keep your mouth shut because you signed a piece of paper, or actually do your duty to serve and defend this country by revealing the crimes being committed by the very institutions meant to defend us.
But the Marcus-hater above was being intentionally misleading by making it sound like Dropbox and Skydrive are both not granting themselves those same broad rights, while conveniently leaving out that Google's terms also make it clear that users retain their own copyrights.
Actually, I think that's exactly what they're arguing -- that a copyrighted product made abroad and not sold in the US by the copyright holder, is illegal to sell in the US at all.
And as I understand it, the US usually allows you to import "illegal" purchases from other countries, as long as the purchase is lawful in the other country, it is only for personal use, and it isn't in itself illegal to possess (certain weapons, child porn, etc).
I personally believe that argument completely defeats the entire purpose the first sale doctrine even exists -- you have the right to use/abuse/sell your physical property as you see fit.
This is exactly what we're trying to say is wrong. Marketing is considered a sunk cost, and it is mathematically unwise to include sunk costs in your prices.
Digital goods really illustrate this point extremely well, because it makes the "total cost" equation extremely simple:
normally (sunk costs) + (units sold * marginal cost), but since marginal costs are so close to 0, it's even simpler:
(sunk costs)
At this point, once you have reduced your sunk costs as much as possible, the only variable you need to worry about is the number of units sold. As an example, you spend $1.5 million on sunk costs (including marketing). As stated before, if you only sell 100,000 units at a price point of $15, you've barely recovered your sunk costs. But by reducing the price to $10 you sell 300,000 units, you've now recovered twice your sunk costs - this is the entire reason why it's unwise to factor sunk costs into your pricing.
I disagree, if your house and car could be used by an infinite number of people at the same time, without causing any problems among any of them, there would be no compelling reason for physical property rights to exist. They are *yours* because of the physical need for them to be.
Yes, you do need a very, very, very good reason to exclude people from your home and car.
A house or car are a rivalrous good, so only a limited number of people could use it at a time. To avoid the problems of fighting over what home or car you will be using today, it makes a pretty damn compelling reason to allow exclusivity laws for them.
But lawyers would not have incentive to help promote the progress of the science of legal theories if we didn't grant copyright on their work. If you use another lawyer's work in your own cases without paying the required license fees, then you are a dirty lawyer pirate that just wants legal theories for free. And, you should be charged with criminal infringement since you are profiting from the use of that intellectual property.
This is a totally win-win situation. After their kids are done with it, your laptop will be returned with even more free music and movies than before your vacation.
Not only that, but to me, your comment also clearly shows that those of that haven't read the bill or don't have the legal training to truly understand it, actually do need to rely on experts we do trust that are trained to understand this stuff, have read the text of the bill, and given a thorough analysis about what is wrong with it.
It absolutely is their choice, until they decided to accept payment for it. If they're taking payments, but then take steps (even if unintentional) that avoid it ever entering the public domain, then they aren't keeping their end of the bargain.
My company actually issues organizational certs to all of our workstations. Even with the "man-in-the-middle" attack you describe, a savvy employee could still possibly catch this one (since as you said, it is still a valid chain of trust), and I occasionally double-check certificates of websites I visit to make sure they are signed by an external certificate authority. To the best of my knowledge, my company hasn't turned on any https monitoring yet, even though they definitely can.
See, this is where our disconnect with you is, and why it is so difficult to debate this. Without some miracle, it would be near impossible to convince you that creators have absolutely no moral or ethical right to control what they create. And because we can't agree on that, by definition, we have trouble agreeing on the purpose of copyright in the first place.
If a creator makes something? Congratulations, the public doesn't owe them anything. If they doesn't like the terms something is being bought under, don't sell it. But stop telling us what to do with what has been shared with us. However, we do want creators to share what they've created, and that is the entire purpose the US Constitution (and those of us that agree with that line of reasoning) allows intellectual property laws like copyright. We allow a limited incentive to "promote the progress of useful arts and sciences."
This point has been made to you over and over again, but we can't seem to get through to you that promoting progress is much more important (and that's an understatement) than a creator being allowed to control their works merely because "they made it."
Actually, Mike realized how totally wrong he is about SOPA, and that the entire State Department secretly wants it to pass so that bunnies and rainbows will appear after the flood of piracy ends. This next quote proves he changed his statement, because he couldn't possibly make the same mistake twice:
And, in fact, as we've reported, we've heard from multiple sources that many, many people within the State Department aren't against the bill, and have put some pressure on other parts of the government over the bill.
Hehe, sorry Mike, I just thought it was pretty funny that you actually did make the same mistake twice (either that, or updated the wrong sentence that Richard pointed out, since I didn't see this article at 4am).
I *think* what darryl was trying to say is that if you average 15 minutes per post, then that's 10,000 man hours of work; or, at 2000 hours of labor per year, comes out to 5 years of labor for all the posts.
He then takes some random income of $44k (I can only assume he's claiming that's the median income for that type of work), multiplies by 5, and is claiming that Mike's blog cost $220k, because he gave all that content away for free.
And then, for everyone riding darryl's wonderful logic train, we arrive straight to the obvious conclusion:
Why do you hate content companies and love thieving raporists, Mike?
On the post: FBI Investigating Chris Roberts For Hacking Flight WiFi, Taking Control Of Engines
Re:
On the post: Why Bob Woodward And His White House Sources Should Be On Trial Before Bradley Manning
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And when those documents detail crimes against humanity, you now have a dilemma: keep your mouth shut because you signed a piece of paper, or actually do your duty to serve and defend this country by revealing the crimes being committed by the very institutions meant to defend us.
On the post: DOJ Taking Down Sites For Infringement... While Infringing Content Is Available Via Its Own Network
Re: @Michael Long
USAISC Headquarters: http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-192-58-4-0-1
NASA: http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-192-58-19-0-1
Texas Instruments, Inc.: http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-192-58-102-0-1
Carnegie Mellon University: http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-192-58-107-0-1
DoD Network Information Center: http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-192-58-155-0-1
and ...
Department of Justice: http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-192-58-200-0-1
Of course, maybe I'm computer illiterate, too, and I'm just doing my ARIN searches wrong.
On the post: Calm Down Internet: Google Drive's Terms Are The Standard For Countless Websites, Including Gmail
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On the post: Supreme Court To Review If It's Legal To Resell A Book You Bought Abroad
Re: Re: Re: The bigger picture
And as I understand it, the US usually allows you to import "illegal" purchases from other countries, as long as the purchase is lawful in the other country, it is only for personal use, and it isn't in itself illegal to possess (certain weapons, child porn, etc).
I personally believe that argument completely defeats the entire purpose the first sale doctrine even exists -- you have the right to use/abuse/sell your physical property as you see fit.
On the post: If Publishers Can't Cover Their Costs With $10 Ebooks, Then They Deserve To Go Out Of Business
Re: Re: Help me out here...
Digital goods really illustrate this point extremely well, because it makes the "total cost" equation extremely simple:
normally (sunk costs) + (units sold * marginal cost), but since marginal costs are so close to 0, it's even simpler:
(sunk costs)
At this point, once you have reduced your sunk costs as much as possible, the only variable you need to worry about is the number of units sold. As an example, you spend $1.5 million on sunk costs (including marketing). As stated before, if you only sell 100,000 units at a price point of $15, you've barely recovered your sunk costs. But by reducing the price to $10 you sell 300,000 units, you've now recovered twice your sunk costs - this is the entire reason why it's unwise to factor sunk costs into your pricing.
On the post: No, Violating Your Employer's Computer Use Policy Is Not Criminal Hacking
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On the post: Reductio Ad Absurdum: Eternal Copyright Is Crazy... But What About Today's Copyright Term?
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On the post: Reductio Ad Absurdum: Eternal Copyright Is Crazy... But What About Today's Copyright Term?
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A house or car are a rivalrous good, so only a limited number of people could use it at a time. To avoid the problems of fighting over what home or car you will be using today, it makes a pretty damn compelling reason to allow exclusivity laws for them.
On the post: Westlaw And Lexis-Nexis Sued AGAIN Over Claims That They're Infringing On Copyrights Of Legal Filings Themselves
For science
On the post: Judge Denies Injunction Against MP3 Reseller Due To Lack Of Irreparable Harm... But Says EMI's Arguments Compelling
Re: how it works
On the post: Young People Followed SOPA News More Than Election News
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On the post: Why Piracy Is Indispensable For The Survival Of Our Culture
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On the post: Whistle-blowing Scientists (Trying To Prevent Dangerous Products From Reaching The Market) Sue FDA For Snooping On Their Personal Email Accounts
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On the post: Copying Is Not Theft, But Censorship Is
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
If a creator makes something? Congratulations, the public doesn't owe them anything. If they doesn't like the terms something is being bought under, don't sell it. But stop telling us what to do with what has been shared with us. However, we do want creators to share what they've created, and that is the entire purpose the US Constitution (and those of us that agree with that line of reasoning) allows intellectual property laws like copyright. We allow a limited incentive to "promote the progress of useful arts and sciences."
This point has been made to you over and over again, but we can't seem to get through to you that promoting progress is much more important (and that's an understatement) than a creator being allowed to control their works merely because "they made it."
On the post: State Department Can't Take An Official Stance On SOPA Yet, So There Isn't One
Re: Re:
On the post: State Department Can't Take An Official Stance On SOPA Yet, So There Isn't One
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Hehe, sorry Mike, I just thought it was pretty funny that you actually did make the same mistake twice (either that, or updated the wrong sentence that Richard pointed out, since I didn't see this article at 4am).
On the post: Senator Wyden Demands Answers About Feds' Seizure Of Dajaz1
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On the post: Oh Look, I've Done 40,000 Techdirt Blog Posts
Re: Re: Worth it ?
He then takes some random income of $44k (I can only assume he's claiming that's the median income for that type of work), multiplies by 5, and is claiming that Mike's blog cost $220k, because he gave all that content away for free.
And then, for everyone riding darryl's wonderful logic train, we arrive straight to the obvious conclusion:
Why do you hate content companies and love thieving raporists, Mike?
On the post: Oh Look, I've Done 40,000 Techdirt Blog Posts
Re: Re: Re: CHEATER!!!!!
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