I would suggest blocking everyone's home page in Denmark just to show how stupid this ruling is, and it has the double advantage it would also avoid having to see horrible flash animations some companies still put there.
Seriously though why should one company have a monopoly on such a common word as home ? They could probably block a good number of other websites on this basis. What next - Trademark a letter, say "i" - oh wait someone already tried that.
"So, apparently, the movie business is collapsing and movies won't get made any more, and the evidence of this is that a ton of new movies got made last year."
You must remember that this is from the people brought you "Hollywood Accounting"
I wonder if anyone has done any calculations as to just how much data is going to be collected ?
If they just log basic information like the URL it's trivial to circumvent the logging. If they log every packet sent they are going to end up with a ridiculous amount of data. I have a small, unimportant website but it still often uses 200Gb of bandwidth in a month.
What about larger companies that host servers themselves ? Are they going to log all the incoming traffic too or is using a computer at one of these going to sidestep the logging?
What is to stop people running a program that randomly browses websites to pollute the data and dilute the chance of working out what that person is actually browsing. What about browsers that preemptively fetch web pages, what proof is there that any webpage was actualy looked at?
They are either going to have to do some serious filtering in real time and possibly lose the very details they are trying to find or end up with an humongous pile of data that is going to take some serious data mining to extract anything useful.
To me the whole thing sounds more like a plan to divert some more public money into their friends pockets than anything that is likely to produce useful information.
But seeing as how Righthaven has been pleading poverty in other cases when fees have been awarded against it, where is it finding the funds for the appeal?
Also even if it does win on the fair use argument won't it still fail on the lack of standing now it's arrangements with the true copyright owner are out in the open.
Of course - Is it not obvious that corporate profits and intellectual property are much more important than people's lives - especially poor people's lives.
But this begs the question of just why drugs cost so much more in the US than in other countries.
As a citizen of a country with affordable universal health care for all I find it very strange that so much effort is being put in to defend a health care system that costs more per capita to run than mine but only services a diminishing percentage of the population.
Is this just another example of the way the US is so screwed up these days? The rich and the corporations syphon off more of the counties wealth into their own coffers while the 99 % suffer?
I somehow feel that 1984 has arrived already and no one noticed it. But the strange thing is we didn't need a ministry of truth to generate the opiate of inconsequential news that keeps today's proles happy and stops them thinking about the real issues that those in power don't want then to think about. Things like the perpetual wars against demonized enemies, the constant erosion of civil liberties and the growth of inequality of wealth.
Litigate hopeless cases just to get more billable hours?
Surly those paragons of virtue that are the legal trade would not do a thing like that? I, mean, these are the very same people our judiciary are appointed from.....
I fail to see anyway making a better snowman is going to lead to life of fame and riches - or even how he is going to make any money this invention at all.
So why did me go to the effort and expense of doing this ? Is it for the notoriety of having patented something or is like the people who join Mensa because they have not done anything with their lives.
Or is it just that I'm missing some wonderful business opportunity that he has the vision to see?
I think the problem is the words we use to describe what is happening here. Why don't we stop saying that this quasi-judicial forfeiture is a "nonprosecution agreement" and call it a Government bribe to avoid prosecution.
Of course the problem is that then people might realize that the next step down this road is a shake-down not by the government itself, but by the government's officials. Welcome to the world's newest banana republic.
Surly by this reasoning mere possession of the unauthenticated item is copyright infringement. All the people who have been sued for illegal music are not trying to sell it just happen to have in on their computer.
So all those people who had bought books overseas could now be sued for hundreds of thousand of dollars of copyright infringement.
I feel sorry for every second hand bookseller in the US. How can they do business without risking vast fines if the don't check the status of every book they sell?
I know they say these bad laws will never be used in that way but as Mike has said on here, governments and corporations seem willing to try to crush the individual when it suites them.
It may just be they are scared s*itless about being sued for missing out a copyright attribution. I don't think anyone's going to get into legal trouble for falsely putting a copyright notice on a public domain photo, but do it the other way round and you could be in deep and expensive trouble.
Any legal types out there can say if is this actually illegal and who is likely to sue them if so?
Or it might just be creeping IP-itis - It's a photograph and therefore it's IP so must belong to someone.
Someone has already loaded a public domain licensed version to the Thingverse that anyone can download. I wonder f they'll try and take that one down too.
Seems to me a bit like the artistic equivalent of those old "look and style" cases.
As the picture is not the same as the original but has a similar style are they trying to say the style itself is copyrighted ?
If so them many aspiring art students and in the deep do-do's - most artists start out copying other peoples work that they admire, indeed, one of my friends got an report from his tutor that said "wants to be an illustrator, knows which illustrator he wants to be"
Can you imagine a world were there first person to use a joke did get the rights to it? Everybody else would have to pay a toll to use it.
Pretty fast the world would become a humourlessness place as everyone would be scared to tell a joke in case someone else had said it first and they would get sued for using it.
So why exactly do we think Patents foster innovation?
Well if I was Google, which sadly I'm not, I would just add something to the search results so that every time people searched for something that would have resulted in a link to these sites said " we have found additional links that would probably be of interest to you, but due to the court action of Copiepresse are unable to display them". A bit like they do now for DMCA takedowns.
I'm sure eventually Copiepresse will get fed up replying to people asking why they are so stupid, who knows, maybe they will even see the errors of their ways.
Re:
I would suggest blocking everyone's home page in Denmark just to show how stupid this ruling is, and it has the double advantage it would also avoid having to see horrible flash animations some companies still put there.
Seriously though why should one company have a monopoly on such a common word as home ? They could probably block a good number of other websites on this basis. What next - Trademark a letter, say "i" - oh wait someone already tried that.
It's Hollywood Accounting
"So, apparently, the movie business is collapsing and movies won't get made any more, and the evidence of this is that a ton of new movies got made last year."
You must remember that this is from the people brought you "Hollywood Accounting"
Re: Osama Bin Laden dead for a year
No - you are letting your own fears terrorize yourselves.
(untitled comment)
So when are we going to start calling this the Mega Fuck-Ups case?
Maybe it's time to invest in hard drive manufacturers
I wonder if anyone has done any calculations as to just how much data is going to be collected ?
If they just log basic information like the URL it's trivial to circumvent the logging. If they log every packet sent they are going to end up with a ridiculous amount of data. I have a small, unimportant website but it still often uses 200Gb of bandwidth in a month.
What about larger companies that host servers themselves ? Are they going to log all the incoming traffic too or is using a computer at one of these going to sidestep the logging?
What is to stop people running a program that randomly browses websites to pollute the data and dilute the chance of working out what that person is actually browsing. What about browsers that preemptively fetch web pages, what proof is there that any webpage was actualy looked at?
They are either going to have to do some serious filtering in real time and possibly lose the very details they are trying to find or end up with an humongous pile of data that is going to take some serious data mining to extract anything useful.
To me the whole thing sounds more like a plan to divert some more public money into their friends pockets than anything that is likely to produce useful information.
But where is the money coming from ?
But seeing as how Righthaven has been pleading poverty in other cases when fees have been awarded against it, where is it finding the funds for the appeal?
Also even if it does win on the fair use argument won't it still fail on the lack of standing now it's arrangements with the true copyright owner are out in the open.
Die because you are poor
Of course - Is it not obvious that corporate profits and intellectual property are much more important than people's lives - especially poor people's lives.
Buy why are prescriptions dearer in the US?
But this begs the question of just why drugs cost so much more in the US than in other countries.
As a citizen of a country with affordable universal health care for all I find it very strange that so much effort is being put in to defend a health care system that costs more per capita to run than mine but only services a diminishing percentage of the population.
Is this just another example of the way the US is so screwed up these days? The rich and the corporations syphon off more of the counties wealth into their own coffers while the 99 % suffer?
Is it 1984 already?
I somehow feel that 1984 has arrived already and no one noticed it. But the strange thing is we didn't need a ministry of truth to generate the opiate of inconsequential news that keeps today's proles happy and stops them thinking about the real issues that those in power don't want then to think about. Things like the perpetual wars against demonized enemies, the constant erosion of civil liberties and the growth of inequality of wealth.
So how did it happen?
(untitled comment)
Litigate hopeless cases just to get more billable hours?
Surly those paragons of virtue that are the legal trade would not do a thing like that? I, mean, these are the very same people our judiciary are appointed from.....
But why did he do it ?
I fail to see anyway making a better snowman is going to lead to life of fame and riches - or even how he is going to make any money this invention at all.
So why did me go to the effort and expense of doing this ? Is it for the notoriety of having patented something or is like the people who join Mensa because they have not done anything with their lives.
Or is it just that I'm missing some wonderful business opportunity that he has the vision to see?
He's still banned from at least one
So I guess no Google+ account for him?
Lets start calling a spade a spade
I think the problem is the words we use to describe what is happening here. Why don't we stop saying that this quasi-judicial forfeiture is a "nonprosecution agreement" and call it a Government bribe to avoid prosecution.
Of course the problem is that then people might realize that the next step down this road is a shake-down not by the government itself, but by the government's officials. Welcome to the world's newest banana republic.
Do you have to sell a book to be breaking this law?
Surly by this reasoning mere possession of the unauthenticated item is copyright infringement. All the people who have been sued for illegal music are not trying to sell it just happen to have in on their computer.
So all those people who had bought books overseas could now be sued for hundreds of thousand of dollars of copyright infringement.
I feel sorry for every second hand bookseller in the US. How can they do business without risking vast fines if the don't check the status of every book they sell?
I know they say these bad laws will never be used in that way but as Mike has said on here, governments and corporations seem willing to try to crush the individual when it suites them.
Is it just Legal paranoia ?
It may just be they are scared s*itless about being sued for missing out a copyright attribution. I don't think anyone's going to get into legal trouble for falsely putting a copyright notice on a public domain photo, but do it the other way round and you could be in deep and expensive trouble.
Any legal types out there can say if is this actually illegal and who is likely to sue them if so?
Or it might just be creeping IP-itis - It's a photograph and therefore it's IP so must belong to someone.
Hey! here's a version under a PD licence
Someone has already loaded a public domain licensed version to the Thingverse that anyone can download. I wonder f they'll try and take that one down too.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:9744
You know who's effect....
I think Dr McKee needs an introduction to my friend Ms. Streisand .
I have this feeling he may not have heard of her, but will be getting to know her very well soon.
But you can't copyright a style
Seems to me a bit like the artistic equivalent of those old "look and style" cases.
As the picture is not the same as the original but has a similar style are they trying to say the style itself is copyrighted ?
If so them many aspiring art students and in the deep do-do's - most artists start out copying other peoples work that they admire, indeed, one of my friends got an report from his tutor that said "wants to be an illustrator, knows which illustrator he wants to be"
Just suppose copyright in jokes did exist
Can you imagine a world were there first person to use a joke did get the rights to it? Everybody else would have to pay a toll to use it.
Pretty fast the world would become a humourlessness place as everyone would be scared to tell a joke in case someone else had said it first and they would get sued for using it.
So why exactly do we think Patents foster innovation?
(untitled comment)
Well if I was Google, which sadly I'm not, I would just add something to the search results so that every time people searched for something that would have resulted in a link to these sites said " we have found additional links that would probably be of interest to you, but due to the court action of Copiepresse are unable to display them". A bit like they do now for DMCA takedowns.
I'm sure eventually Copiepresse will get fed up replying to people asking why they are so stupid, who knows, maybe they will even see the errors of their ways.