Maybe (I do have an opinion, but it's not relevant to the point) - but maybe, parties who have leaked documents to Wikileaks are guilty of Treason or are Traitors - but as far as I can tell, Wikileaks isn't a US organisation and the owner and primary operators aren't US citizens.
On one hand, I know that most American's are smart, and not unreasonably arrogant. On the other hand - it's getting really easy to generalize American's as having no grasp of the fact that there is a world outside of America and that people who don't have any particular interest in American law or American national interest aren't necessarily part of the terrorist conspiracy.
I might be renouncing my geek creds here - but if the school isn't doing anything terribly innovative or interesting with mobile devices, but is instead finding that the devices aren't being beneficially used anywhere in the school, except by kids who are goofing off instead of paying attention, why not ban them - or at least require that they aren't used during school hours?
I normally loathe the somebody think of the children arguments - but in this case - a gaming environment where a significant proportion of the user base are in fact minors - it seems like requiring a real name for posting on the forums is a gift for predators who might want to groom through WoW and stalk through social networks. Taking away the ability to remain anonymous takes away the ability of kids who actually have an excuse for not knowing better to abstract their real identity and keep privacy in place for safety online.
I wonder if Third Party liability will extend to the first person raped by a stalker who was only able to locate them because of the inability to use Blizzard's service anonymously?
Spanish law isn't notably different in it's copywrite interpretations, but somehow Spanish judges actually seem to be savvy enough to understand how the technology is being used to identify breaches worth suing over and garbage that should be ignored.
There must be some way to get these Spanish Judges to go on some kind of roaming lecture circuit sabbatical to educate Judges from other countries about the cases that they're ruling on.
Wait... You don't like the odds at a Lottery - where you could say bet on Black at a roulette table, or count cards at a Blackjack table untill the house decided they didn't want to play with you any more (and possibly broke your arms on the way out)... but you play the Lottery, where your odds of winning are worse then your odds of walking up to a stranger in a high transit airport and guessing their phone number? Where your odds of winning are lower then your odds of being killed by falling space debris? Srsly?
I'm not a gambler - but if you are going to play, even casino machines have much better odds than large lotteries.
Strangely enough, the people who program ATM's manage to not give out erroneous ammounts of money terribly often. They actually have quality control on their software development process. Gaming isn't exactly alow profit industry that would struggle to remain afload if required to invest in their own quality control standards.
Now see, I agree that patent trolling is bad. Patenting things that are in common usage, or things that are a logical extension of the existing products is stupid.
But the CSIRO owns the patent on a data transformation equation that was developed to solve a previously unsolvable problem. It required very extensive facillities and extensive specialist research and a high degree of specialist insight and creativity to develop.
If the equation had been say... the Formula for a vaccine to prevent a specific type of cancer (which incidentally, they do own a few of, and they're one of the world's leading research groups in the pursuit of others, which they make available much more reasonably then Phizer), Nobody would argue that they owned the patent, no question.
Hell, nobody argued that this was a perfectly reasonable patent to own when It was released under license to parties who agreed to pay licensing feeds and then magically became an industry standard - with no money actually going to the patent holders - even though there was a clear agreement that there should be.
So to clarify - a research company, who do lots of altruistic, nice things because they're a pure research group with a non profit model who use their patents to fund further research, spent a shitload of money on equipment, funded a shitload of expensive researcher time and had a very clever specialist solve a previously unsolvable problem.
They then licensed that solution to some for profit companies who never actually paid them. Despite agreeing to do so before gaining access to the research in the first place.
After 10 years of polite reminders and 5 years of lawsuits - they finally actually got paid. Hooray. For once, scientists actually got funding as a result of major contributions to the betterment of technology. There's no motive of shareholders trying to keep dividends and share prices high and restricting innovation.
Now, they're looking to recover some money (which to re-iterate, will go to a non-profit, pure research group who works extensively on developing cheap medicines and making communication tools available to the very poor and releasing cheap information to try and help reduce obesity and cuddly hippy shit like that) from other companies who took the patented results of their very extensive investment that lead to solving an otherwise unsolvable problem and made a shitload of money from it.
Still not patent trolling.
CSIRO is a really, genuinely good organization who do a bunch of really genuinely good work and don't get nearly enough funding. Being angry at them actually expecting to get paid in this circumstance is ridiculous. Lumping them in with Patent Troll's is just offensive.
On behalf of all Australians, I'd like to Appologise for Conroy. He's an idiot and we're not sure how he became a state official, much less how he ended up in charge of telecommunications.
Am I the only person more annoyed about the claims that the Navi are based on Native Americans than the idea that Cameron might have ripped someone off?
The story of the Navi, being screwed by (almost entirely caucasian) mining groups, and the Navi culture seems to be almost entirely derived from African history rather than North American.
And cue the claims that Cameron ripped off 'Blood Diamond' and 'The Power of One'.
Shennanigans. They over played their hand by "claiming that 75% of ISPs have "cooperated fully." Shennanigans I say. I think this is an entirely fictious event intended to scare people away from downloading the movie. ISP's only ever cooperate with this sort of nonsense when they're under court order or when they've got an executive with crossed interests. It's bad for their business.
But I bet if this move gets media traction and hits CNN.com's front page - a pretty hefty number of people who would have downloaded it will avoid the torrents now just to be safe.
Depending on how much consumer backlash actually occurs - it might even play out. I think honestly, most of the people I know who wanted to watch Hurt Locker, will still want to watch it, even after hearing about this.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Scootah.
Treason and Traitors
On one hand, I know that most American's are smart, and not unreasonably arrogant. On the other hand - it's getting really easy to generalize American's as having no grasp of the fact that there is a world outside of America and that people who don't have any particular interest in American law or American national interest aren't necessarily part of the terrorist conspiracy.
(untitled comment)
Won't somebody think of the children?
I wonder if Third Party liability will extend to the first person raped by a stalker who was only able to locate them because of the inability to use Blizzard's service anonymously?
Roaming Sabbaticals?
There must be some way to get these Spanish Judges to go on some kind of roaming lecture circuit sabbatical to educate Judges from other countries about the cases that they're ruling on.
Re: Anyone who gambles on machines in casinos deserves to lose
I'm not a gambler - but if you are going to play, even casino machines have much better odds than large lotteries.
Re: Re: glitches
Re: (as scootah)
Maybe then the vendors will start actually developing quality products.
(untitled comment)
I mean if FTD are criminals then surely Google are freaking Monsters?
Patent Trolling vs Research Organization actually wanting to get paid
Now see, I agree that patent trolling is bad. Patenting things that are in common usage, or things that are a logical extension of the existing products is stupid.
But the CSIRO owns the patent on a data transformation equation that was developed to solve a previously unsolvable problem. It required very extensive facillities and extensive specialist research and a high degree of specialist insight and creativity to develop.
If the equation had been say... the Formula for a vaccine to prevent a specific type of cancer (which incidentally, they do own a few of, and they're one of the world's leading research groups in the pursuit of others, which they make available much more reasonably then Phizer), Nobody would argue that they owned the patent, no question.
Hell, nobody argued that this was a perfectly reasonable patent to own when It was released under license to parties who agreed to pay licensing feeds and then magically became an industry standard - with no money actually going to the patent holders - even though there was a clear agreement that there should be.
So to clarify - a research company, who do lots of altruistic, nice things because they're a pure research group with a non profit model who use their patents to fund further research, spent a shitload of money on equipment, funded a shitload of expensive researcher time and had a very clever specialist solve a previously unsolvable problem.
They then licensed that solution to some for profit companies who never actually paid them. Despite agreeing to do so before gaining access to the research in the first place.
After 10 years of polite reminders and 5 years of lawsuits - they finally actually got paid. Hooray. For once, scientists actually got funding as a result of major contributions to the betterment of technology. There's no motive of shareholders trying to keep dividends and share prices high and restricting innovation.
Now, they're looking to recover some money (which to re-iterate, will go to a non-profit, pure research group who works extensively on developing cheap medicines and making communication tools available to the very poor and releasing cheap information to try and help reduce obesity and cuddly hippy shit like that) from other companies who took the patented results of their very extensive investment that lead to solving an otherwise unsolvable problem and made a shitload of money from it.
Still not patent trolling.
CSIRO is a really, genuinely good organization who do a bunch of really genuinely good work and don't get nearly enough funding. Being angry at them actually expecting to get paid in this circumstance is ridiculous. Lumping them in with Patent Troll's is just offensive.
(untitled comment)
We're really sorry.
(untitled comment) (as scootah)
The story of the Navi, being screwed by (almost entirely caucasian) mining groups, and the Navi culture seems to be almost entirely derived from African history rather than North American.
And cue the claims that Cameron ripped off 'Blood Diamond' and 'The Power of One'.
Shennanigans I say
But I bet if this move gets media traction and hits CNN.com's front page - a pretty hefty number of people who would have downloaded it will avoid the torrents now just to be safe.
Depending on how much consumer backlash actually occurs - it might even play out. I think honestly, most of the people I know who wanted to watch Hurt Locker, will still want to watch it, even after hearing about this.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Scootah.
Submit a story now.
Tools & Services
TwitterFacebook
RSS
Podcast
Research & Reports
Company
About UsAdvertising Policies
Privacy
Contact
Help & FeedbackMedia Kit
Sponsor/Advertise
Submit a Story
More
Copia InstituteInsider Shop
Support Techdirt