Just remember, if you force companies to spend more either for enhanced security or fines, they will just pass it along...
I am suspicious that if the current cost of breaches was higher than the cost to prevent the breaches (if this is even possible) then companies would probably spend more for prevention. Thus you want costs to go up and thus our costs for using credit to go up. There is no free lunch.
And lastly, large companies can more easily afford the cost to secure their systems, so I assume the affect of your proposal would be to destroy lots of small businesses.
Nice of you to expect the IT folks and senior management to put their jobs, careers, and lives in jeopardy (as well as that of the company) so you can be empowered to use the latest bling.
In 20 years of IT (many at CIO level) I have seen dozens of situations where a well meaning user (aren't they all?) evades IT policies and controls to "help" the company and end up creating a big pile a %$#% that IT has to clean up.
> I can't figure out that big old SAP system, I just keep my orders in Excel.
> I'll just help IT out by installing this little wireless access point over here.
> I never liked that report, so I'll just download the data and create my own. Other people like it too, (dumb ol IT!) so I'll just send my report to them to.
> That stupid system won't let me ship the product if I enter the REAL data, so I'll just enter what the system wants and it will move on.
> I wrote this really cool application in FoxPro that we use to value all our inventory.
> Well I could have gone though that complex system required by the FAA, but I'm sure my fix to that engine was correct. IT is sooooo bureaucratic!!! All those signatures and stuff!!!
> Billy is leaving the company and he wanted to keep in touch, so I emailed him the HR database.
> Johnny hates our corporate email system, so he just conducts business from his gmail account but then he got fired. Now he is sending email to customers saying their orders are delayed? How could IT have allowed this to happen???
To get a patent you only have to show that your fill-in-the-blank is new and non-obvious.
Since the purpose, per the constitution, is to "promote the progress" could a third test be a requirement to present a plan demonstrating how the granting of the patent "promotes the progress".
You might answer that such a plan could be gamed, but perhaps a patent could be overturned if the plan were not executed.
This should effectively eliminate patent trolls.
It just seems that the whole system is so tied up in the minutiae of how a patent is granted that the main purpose is getting lost.
For at least 20 years - long before anyone even imagined iTunes - I used this feature of the CA tax law to saves tens of thousands of dollars for companies I worked for. We insisted that vendors allow us to download their software and not get any CDs or manuals (nothing physical). We did not have to pay sales taxes on the purchases. The largest purchase was ~$400K of SAP software and we avoided $30K in sales taxes.
I thought however that the state had changed something. A couple years ago I purchased about $100K of Oracle licenses and no matter what we demanded, Oracle insisted that by law they had to send us a CD, so we had to pay the taxes. That was one VERY expensive CD.
I am NOT in favor of raising taxes, but this quirk in the law always seemed strange.
I *thought* that the concern driving Apples SDK restrictions is that the iPhone OS does not have a solid security model. All apps run as root. If Apple allows untested apps to be easily installed then iPhones will be rapidly infected by malware and this could seriously damage the its reputation.
My doctor in California won't take or send email unless I log into their website and use their email. He said that due to HIPPA he would get a $10K per email fine for sending medical information via unencrypted email.
The leased-not-purchased-licensing affects large companies that purchase products like Oracle and SAP. They can spend millions licensing such software but if they decide to not use it, there is no way to resell it, just a massive write-off.
Autodesk's licensing, which is common, comes to the attention of common people because they sell to both companies and end users.
Lots of information on a given topic but it's spread all over and impossible to find - solution: search engines find the information a bring it to one place. Problem: the information is not structured. It is presented as a mass of links that a user has to sort through.
Web rev B
People with information on a given topic bring it to a single place where it is structured, organized and discussed. Links still exist, but they are placed in a context.
I once saw a crammer work by sending what looked like a refund check for $1 to our company's Accounts Payable department. Rather than bothering to verify such a small check the clerk simply deposited it. On the back of the check is wording that said "By depositing this check you sign up for our service"
1. I subscribe to a news clipping service and I choose the option that allows one person to see/use the articles and no re-distribution. I redistribute the articles. I assume I am liable for damages. I violated the contract I signed.
2. I see an interesting article in a magazine and I bring it to work to show others. Is this a violation of copyright?
I have heard that FSF estimates that it takes about $5M and three years to invalidate an improperly granted software patent. By improper I means things where is there is clear prior art or extreme obviousness.
I believe that during this time infringers are not allowed to use the patented material.
These, taken together, mean that simply assuming poor patents will be invalidated is wishful thinking.
So Indonesia does not supply its bird flu samples and thus no vaccine is produced so bird flu breaks out in Indonesia and millions die, but at least they did not give any money to capitalists.
All broadcast TV has copyright notices that say that use without permission is prohibited.
I assume this means that an infringer that posts such content to YouTube has been "informed" that they cannot do this. This means that if sued, the infringer cannot claim that they unknowingly infringed. If however the owner does not challenge the posting, and in fact allows the knowing violation of the terms of use of their copyrighted material, could this reduce their ability to enforce their copyright in the future?
I am not missing the option to make an agreement, but one has to be very careful. Once you have given away your rights it is difficult to get them back if the situation changes.
For example, what happens when the video quality on YouTube improves to be similar to a TV so people truly do watch shows on YouTube? If your rights are gone, they are are gone and so is your business.
I am not trying to take Viacom's position. I am just pointing out that in today's very legalistic society, your actions are many times not determined by what is "right" but by what make legal sense.
Also I thought that I have read elsewhere than Viacom has been in negotiations with YouTube but that these have gone nowhere.
Could a knowledgeable person answer this question?
I have been told by a lawyer that a copyright or patent holder that did not sue infringers, effectively loses the ability to sue a later infringer as the later infringer could defend themselves by saying that the earlier non defense by the owner showed that they did not really care about the property.
If this is true, then all this talk about whether it is good to allow one infringement (for advertising) or another is pointless as you either must sue or lose your rights.
When a company incorporates it can choose one of several structures. The two that have stock are S-corp and C-corp. Other structures (SP, LLC, etc. ) do not have stock. All publicly traded stocks are C-corp.
Millions of companies that are not public still have stock. Some are huge.
Whether you are publicly traded or not, the stock represents ownership.
I am sure that this company is not publicly traded. The legal hurdles to go public are huge and no one that is public would make the mistake of trying to sell stock though a newspaper ad.
It is easy for small companies to make this mistake. Lets say Bill and I own an S-corp and we want to bring in Jerry so lets just sell Jerry some of our stock and then Jerry is an owner along with us. This is legal. A small step from here would be to say, let's run an ad in the paper or the Internet looking for people to invest in our company. Although this sounds reasonable, it is not legal. Your ad is a public offering and the laws governing this are very rigid. This is an example of the government "protecting" us. Whether this makes sense or not I will leave to the reader.
When a company incorporates it can choose one of several structures. The two that have stock are S-corp and C-corp. Other structures (SP, LLC, etc. ) do not have stock. All publicly traded stocks are C-corp.
Millions of companies that are not public still have stock. Some are huge.
Whether you are publicly traded or not, the stock represents ownership.
I am sure that this company is not publicly traded. The legal hurdles to go public are huge and no one that is public would make the mistake of trying to sell stock though a newspaper ad.
It is easy for small companies to make this mistake. Lets say Bill and I own an S-corp and we want to bring in Jerry so lets just sell Jerry some of our stock and then Jerry is an owner along with us. This is legal. A small step from here would be to say, let's run an ad in the paper or the Internet looking for people to invest in our company. Although this sounds reasonable, it is not legal. Your ad is a public offering and the laws governing this are very rigid. This is an example of the government "protecting" us. Whether this makes sense or not I will leave to the reader.
1. Very few people had cellphones in 1990.
2. A very large number of people have cellphones now
3. Cellphone usage has grown from 1990 to present.
4. Cellphone usage in cars has also grown
If cellphones are as dangerous as anti-cellphone zealots make them out to be, then the accident rates from 1990 to 2006 should have gone way up.
From what I understand the accident rate per 100,000 miles traveled have dropped continuously over this time.
What conclusion can be drawn other than the anti-cellphone zealots are wrong.
A a check on the hypothesis, as cellphone use is restricted, the accident rate should SIGNIFICANTLY drop.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by NormD.
Who actually pays?
Just remember, if you force companies to spend more either for enhanced security or fines, they will just pass it along...
I am suspicious that if the current cost of breaches was higher than the cost to prevent the breaches (if this is even possible) then companies would probably spend more for prevention. Thus you want costs to go up and thus our costs for using credit to go up. There is no free lunch.
And lastly, large companies can more easily afford the cost to secure their systems, so I assume the affect of your proposal would be to destroy lots of small businesses.
Compliance Compliance Compliance Compliance
Compliance Compliance Compliance Compliance...
Nice of you to expect the IT folks and senior management to put their jobs, careers, and lives in jeopardy (as well as that of the company) so you can be empowered to use the latest bling.
In 20 years of IT (many at CIO level) I have seen dozens of situations where a well meaning user (aren't they all?) evades IT policies and controls to "help" the company and end up creating a big pile a %$#% that IT has to clean up.
> I can't figure out that big old SAP system, I just keep my orders in Excel.
> I'll just help IT out by installing this little wireless access point over here.
> I never liked that report, so I'll just download the data and create my own. Other people like it too, (dumb ol IT!) so I'll just send my report to them to.
> That stupid system won't let me ship the product if I enter the REAL data, so I'll just enter what the system wants and it will move on.
> I wrote this really cool application in FoxPro that we use to value all our inventory.
> Well I could have gone though that complex system required by the FAA, but I'm sure my fix to that engine was correct. IT is sooooo bureaucratic!!! All those signatures and stuff!!!
> Billy is leaving the company and he wanted to keep in touch, so I emailed him the HR database.
> Johnny hates our corporate email system, so he just conducts business from his gmail account but then he got fired. Now he is sending email to customers saying their orders are delayed? How could IT have allowed this to happen???
Stupid question?
To get a patent you only have to show that your fill-in-the-blank is new and non-obvious.
Since the purpose, per the constitution, is to "promote the progress" could a third test be a requirement to present a plan demonstrating how the granting of the patent "promotes the progress".
You might answer that such a plan could be gamed, but perhaps a patent could be overturned if the plan were not executed.
This should effectively eliminate patent trolls.
It just seems that the whole system is so tied up in the minutiae of how a patent is granted that the main purpose is getting lost.
Just thinking...
Who cares about iTunes?
For at least 20 years - long before anyone even imagined iTunes - I used this feature of the CA tax law to saves tens of thousands of dollars for companies I worked for. We insisted that vendors allow us to download their software and not get any CDs or manuals (nothing physical). We did not have to pay sales taxes on the purchases. The largest purchase was ~$400K of SAP software and we avoided $30K in sales taxes.
I thought however that the state had changed something. A couple years ago I purchased about $100K of Oracle licenses and no matter what we demanded, Oracle insisted that by law they had to send us a CD, so we had to pay the taxes. That was one VERY expensive CD.
I am NOT in favor of raising taxes, but this quirk in the law always seemed strange.
Problem is the iPhone OS
I *thought* that the concern driving Apples SDK restrictions is that the iPhone OS does not have a solid security model. All apps run as root. If Apple allows untested apps to be easily installed then iPhones will be rapidly infected by malware and this could seriously damage the its reputation.
HIPPA and email
My doctor in California won't take or send email unless I log into their website and use their email. He said that due to HIPPA he would get a $10K per email fine for sending medical information via unencrypted email.
Same for Oracle, SAP, other large packages
This is a huge issue for companies
The leased-not-purchased-licensing affects large companies that purchase products like Oracle and SAP. They can spend millions licensing such software but if they decide to not use it, there is no way to resell it, just a massive write-off.
Autodesk's licensing, which is common, comes to the attention of common people because they sell to both companies and end users.
Wikipedia will kill Google
Web rev A
Lots of information on a given topic but it's spread all over and impossible to find - solution: search engines find the information a bring it to one place. Problem: the information is not structured. It is presented as a mass of links that a user has to sort through.
Web rev B
People with information on a given topic bring it to a single place where it is structured, organized and discussed. Links still exist, but they are placed in a context.
The need for search is vastly reduced.
Refund check tiggers charges
I once saw a crammer work by sending what looked like a refund check for $1 to our company's Accounts Payable department. Rather than bothering to verify such a small check the clerk simply deposited it. On the back of the check is wording that said "By depositing this check you sign up for our service"
Questions
Two situations:
1. I subscribe to a news clipping service and I choose the option that allows one person to see/use the articles and no re-distribution. I redistribute the articles. I assume I am liable for damages. I violated the contract I signed.
2. I see an interesting article in a magazine and I bring it to work to show others. Is this a violation of copyright?
I find 1 to be reasonable but 2 shocking.
Huge cost to invalidate patents
I have heard that FSF estimates that it takes about $5M and three years to invalidate an improperly granted software patent. By improper I means things where is there is clear prior art or extreme obviousness.
I believe that during this time infringers are not allowed to use the patented material.
These, taken together, mean that simply assuming poor patents will be invalidated is wishful thinking.
Re: Chilling Effects
So Indonesia does not supply its bird flu samples and thus no vaccine is produced so bird flu breaks out in Indonesia and millions die, but at least they did not give any money to capitalists.
That makes sense to you?
Re: Re: Sue or lose your rights?
One more question.
All broadcast TV has copyright notices that say that use without permission is prohibited.
I assume this means that an infringer that posts such content to YouTube has been "informed" that they cannot do this. This means that if sued, the infringer cannot claim that they unknowingly infringed. If however the owner does not challenge the posting, and in fact allows the knowing violation of the terms of use of their copyrighted material, could this reduce their ability to enforce their copyright in the future?
Re: Sue or lose your rights?
I am not missing the option to make an agreement, but one has to be very careful. Once you have given away your rights it is difficult to get them back if the situation changes.
For example, what happens when the video quality on YouTube improves to be similar to a TV so people truly do watch shows on YouTube? If your rights are gone, they are are gone and so is your business.
I am not trying to take Viacom's position. I am just pointing out that in today's very legalistic society, your actions are many times not determined by what is "right" but by what make legal sense.
Also I thought that I have read elsewhere than Viacom has been in negotiations with YouTube but that these have gone nowhere.
Sue or lose your rights?
Could a knowledgeable person answer this question?
I have been told by a lawyer that a copyright or patent holder that did not sue infringers, effectively loses the ability to sue a later infringer as the later infringer could defend themselves by saying that the earlier non defense by the owner showed that they did not really care about the property.
If this is true, then all this talk about whether it is good to allow one infringement (for advertising) or another is pointless as you either must sue or lose your rights.
Previous comments only pertain to public stocks
When a company incorporates it can choose one of several structures. The two that have stock are S-corp and C-corp. Other structures (SP, LLC, etc. ) do not have stock. All publicly traded stocks are C-corp.
Millions of companies that are not public still have stock. Some are huge.
Whether you are publicly traded or not, the stock represents ownership.
I am sure that this company is not publicly traded. The legal hurdles to go public are huge and no one that is public would make the mistake of trying to sell stock though a newspaper ad.
It is easy for small companies to make this mistake. Lets say Bill and I own an S-corp and we want to bring in Jerry so lets just sell Jerry some of our stock and then Jerry is an owner along with us. This is legal. A small step from here would be to say, let's run an ad in the paper or the Internet looking for people to invest in our company. Although this sounds reasonable, it is not legal. Your ad is a public offering and the laws governing this are very rigid. This is an example of the government "protecting" us. Whether this makes sense or not I will leave to the reader.
Previous comments only pertain to public stocks
When a company incorporates it can choose one of several structures. The two that have stock are S-corp and C-corp. Other structures (SP, LLC, etc. ) do not have stock. All publicly traded stocks are C-corp.
Millions of companies that are not public still have stock. Some are huge.
Whether you are publicly traded or not, the stock represents ownership.
I am sure that this company is not publicly traded. The legal hurdles to go public are huge and no one that is public would make the mistake of trying to sell stock though a newspaper ad.
It is easy for small companies to make this mistake. Lets say Bill and I own an S-corp and we want to bring in Jerry so lets just sell Jerry some of our stock and then Jerry is an owner along with us. This is legal. A small step from here would be to say, let's run an ad in the paper or the Internet looking for people to invest in our company. Although this sounds reasonable, it is not legal. Your ad is a public offering and the laws governing this are very rigid. This is an example of the government "protecting" us. Whether this makes sense or not I will leave to the reader.
I don't believe the anti-cellphone zealots
Simple facts:
1. Very few people had cellphones in 1990.
2. A very large number of people have cellphones now
3. Cellphone usage has grown from 1990 to present.
4. Cellphone usage in cars has also grown
If cellphones are as dangerous as anti-cellphone zealots make them out to be, then the accident rates from 1990 to 2006 should have gone way up.
From what I understand the accident rate per 100,000 miles traveled have dropped continuously over this time.
What conclusion can be drawn other than the anti-cellphone zealots are wrong.
A a check on the hypothesis, as cellphone use is restricted, the accident rate should SIGNIFICANTLY drop.