xs 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Amazon Uses Steve Jobs Words Against Him In App Store Dispute

    xs ( profile ), 27 Apr, 2011 @ 10:34am

    Re: Re: Cool

    Any sane business person would have sued Amazon for this. Apple's App store, generic name or not, has been used and treated as something specific to Apple since it started. Nobody else had an App store before Apple, and none since, until Amazon came up with their version.

    There's nothing accidental or inevitable about the Amazon's use of this name. They could have called it the App Mart, Amazon Store, Amazon Apps, whatever. But they deliberately choose to use a name identical to Apple's to ride Apple's coat tail.

  • On the post: SWAT Team Raids Home Because Guy Had An Open Wireless Router

    xs ( profile ), 25 Apr, 2011 @ 02:43pm

    Re: less then half a day

    The people who produce the stuff would have lawyers and money and well thought out plans to cover their ass. So they have to really be careful and get their ducks in the row before going in. For ordinary people like us, they think they probably could have scared us to confess right then and there with a full SWAT team bearing down.

  • On the post: Woman Sues Yankees Over Their 75 Year Old Logo

    xs ( profile ), 22 Apr, 2011 @ 08:49am

    Re: Just another example of why we should make the loser pay

    If that's the rule, then good luck finding any help when a big entity violates your right.

  • On the post: Even Mainstream Reporters Now Mocking US Bogus 'Transparency' On Human Rights Issues Concerning Bradley Manning

    xs ( profile ), 12 Apr, 2011 @ 02:17pm

    Re: Re: Re: Rate of change ?

    What about him? He was not arrested over free speach issues. Or are you suggest been a political dissident in China entitle him to immunity from any and all crimes?

    In any case, there's an "ongong legal proceeding" regard to him. So, that should be all.

  • On the post: Even Mainstream Reporters Now Mocking US Bogus 'Transparency' On Human Rights Issues Concerning Bradley Manning

    xs ( profile ), 12 Apr, 2011 @ 02:12pm

    Re: Re:

    Your infomation is woefully outdated. In China, you can find just as much information about anything Chinese government did or allegedly did as you would find in US. So the fact you read about it online proves nothing.

    The only thing different between China and US right now is people in China is a whole lot more skeptical.

  • On the post: China Says No More Movies And TV Shows About Time Travel

    xs ( profile ), 07 Apr, 2011 @ 11:55am

    Re: Someone jumped the gun with wrong translation

    Yep. What were stopped was only remake of the 4 classics. And that's only with "no more remake in the short term", not a complete ban. For time travel shows, it's only "Not encouraged", because of the distortion of historical fact, and lack of artistic value. Cloning of western shows are also only limited, but not banned, with an aim to have original shows comprising 60% of content.

  • On the post: China Says No More Movies And TV Shows About Time Travel

    xs ( profile ), 07 Apr, 2011 @ 09:49am

    Re:

    Not everything in China is related to "crazy ideas", you know. The true motivation to ban further remake is because there're 3 or 4 remakes in the last few years on the "Dream of Red Chamber" alone. And each one is a worse adaptation than the one before to boot. There are suspicion that those productions are actually money laundering efforts.

  • On the post: Does Google Have A Patent Problem… Or Does The Patent System Have A Google Problem?

    xs ( profile ), 05 Apr, 2011 @ 01:54pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    You must have some very wacky IP clauses in the non-compete agreement you signed. Non-compete are designed to stop people from taking confidential information belonging to Company A and use it at work for Company B. It has nothing to do with patents, ownership of patents, and transferability of patents.


    If the IP was not developed by the scientist/engineer, then the change to IP's transferability doesn't impact him one way or the other.

    If the IP was developed by the scientist/engineer, but owned by the company, then this change wouldn't impact him one way or the other.

    If the IP was developed by the scientist/engineer, and owned by him personally, then the IP rights just go with him when he changes job regardless of its transferability. so the change still doesn't impact him one way or the other.

    If the IP is jointly owned by scientis/engineer and the company, then they would still share the ownership of the IP after he changes job, still isn't impacted by the change.

  • On the post: Record Labels May Owe Artists Close To $2 Billion; Lawsuits Ramp Up With Rick James In The Lead

    xs ( profile ), 05 Apr, 2011 @ 10:44am

    Re: Precedent?

    I don't think you even need to wait for them actually arguing it all. If we can get their financial record showing how they are paying the artists on the online sales, and those records show the artists were been paid as though the online music were "sales", then by implication, it means record labels were defining online music sales as "sales".

    At least that's my shallow knowledge of law tells me.

  • On the post: Big Media To Innovative App Maker: Stop Innovating Without Our Permission!

    xs ( profile ), 31 Mar, 2011 @ 02:54pm

    Re: Re: Sorry Mike, you are wrong on this one

    The question is are they republishing the original content.

    Browsers may by design or by error, fail to render an HTML page the way designer intended, but the browser doesn't add anything to the presentation.

    ZITE's service/app or whatever you want to call it, does add to the presentation.

    So the argument that it's simply a different browser, thus not subject to any copy right restriction isn't a valid one.

  • On the post: Big Media To Innovative App Maker: Stop Innovating Without Our Permission!

    xs ( profile ), 31 Mar, 2011 @ 02:38pm

    Re: Re: Sorry Mike, you are wrong on this one

    reinterpret HTML by itself is acceptable. But what ZITE is doing is certainly not just an interpretation of the original HTML code. To present the data in ZITE's own form, ZITE is creating new HTML code that do not exist on any one of the original content pages. It may contain whole sections of code from original content pages, or link to original pages, but the presented form can not exist without additional HTML codes wrapped around the original. Thus, it is foundamentally different from a pure browser, which only intepret HTML code, and DO NOT add any of their own onto the page.

  • On the post: Big Media To Innovative App Maker: Stop Innovating Without Our Permission!

    xs ( profile ), 31 Mar, 2011 @ 11:12am

    Sorry Mike, you are wrong on this one

    ZITE provides a service where it copy everything from original article and removes all design elements. Clearly not something covered under fair use law. Not as simple as "accessing your content easier", it's more like "presenting someone else's content as ZITE's own".

    ZITE just needs to adhere to fair use law, and provids only an excerp of the original, and this would go away.

  • On the post: MPAA Praises Government Censorship And Lack Of Due Process

    xs ( profile ), 31 Mar, 2011 @ 11:01am

    Re: Censorship is when the government stop you from expressing your own opinions

    If people supposedly supporting artists start using sensible argument, then maybe people will listen to their reason.

    Just because a site is largely automatic doesn't mean government can freely take it down. If I have a billboard that I allow anyone to stick a piece of paper on it with their opinion on something, say a local government. Would it be OK under any circumstance for government to seize that billboard without first going through due process?

    Physical billboard, electronic bulletinboard, same concept, should have same treatment.

  • On the post: Good Question: How The Hell Did The NYT Spend $40 Million On That Paywall?

    xs ( profile ), 28 Mar, 2011 @ 10:03am

    Re:

    must not have been in the test case. Nobody went the extra step, or someone did but it never was recorded.

  • On the post: China Will Cut Off Your Phone Call If You Say The Word 'Protest' [Updated]

    xs ( profile ), 24 Mar, 2011 @ 03:32pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: The more silly part of the story is how anyone can believe this is true

    Now anyone who resort to "Now, that's a great question. Someone actually monitoring phone calls (through whatever means) is probably not the most logical person." as an answer isn't the most logical person in the world.

  • On the post: China Will Cut Off Your Phone Call If You Say The Word 'Protest' [Updated]

    xs ( profile ), 23 Mar, 2011 @ 10:38am

    Re: Re: The more silly part of the story is how anyone can believe this is true

    What you're proposing is even more unbelievable. You are proposing that Chinese government has a system to actually transcribe the calls that maybe in multiple languages and/or dialecs, then datamine the transcription for additional data to decide what other calls to monitor and transcribe. While technically it could probably be done, it raises the question: what's the point of cutting off the conversation if you want to gather information from the call?

  • On the post: China Will Cut Off Your Phone Call If You Say The Word 'Protest' [Updated]

    xs ( profile ), 23 Mar, 2011 @ 09:55am

    The more silly part of the story is how anyone can believe this is true

    Does anyone truely believe Chinese government posseses AI technology that's far more advanced than anyone in the world, and only utilize it to monitor phone calls? Think about how many cell phones there are in China. The three big carriers have something around 700 million customers. If only 1% of them are on the phone at any one time, it's 7 million calls to be monitored concurrently. During day time, it could be easily 10 times that at peak.

    Do you honestly believe Chinese government has the capacity to monitor that kind of call volumn, and able to pick out a list of words in them while account for language, dialect, environmental noise, call quality and etc., and still can cut off the correct conversation in seconds after the key word was detected? All without slow down the entire cell phone system to a crawl?

    And to think, the person immediately recognized it was the key word Protest that triggered the disconnect the first time it happened to him. Hmm, how observant of him.

    Plus, it's been tested and verified by many Chinese people that saying these purported key words does nothing to your phone conversation. So stop with the sensationalism and get back down to earth.

  • On the post: Best Selling Author Turns Down Half A Million Dollar Publishing Contract To Self-Publish

    xs ( profile ), 21 Mar, 2011 @ 02:16pm

    Re: Re: Marketing

    If that's what they want to know, then a one page checklist showing the various marketing tools the writer is willing to utilize would have been enough.

    Why would they want the writer to come up a detailed plan, when the publisher is supposedly the more experienced one in marketing?

  • On the post: Does An Impartial Jury Mean An Ignorant Jury? Can Barry Bonds Get An 'Impartial' Jury?

    xs ( profile ), 18 Mar, 2011 @ 12:57pm

    Re: Re:

    Judging by the amount of FUD regularly thrown about on the internet, I would take my risk with potentially biased and unscrupulus lawyers. At least what's said in court is transcribed and there's a chance I can appeal it somehow. But should Jury convict me based on some random comments logged somewhere on the internet that the Jury have no record of, then I'm truly, irrevocablly F**ked.

  • On the post: Does An Impartial Jury Mean An Ignorant Jury? Can Barry Bonds Get An 'Impartial' Jury?

    xs ( profile ), 18 Mar, 2011 @ 12:46pm

    Mike is mistaken about what it means to be "informed jury"

    An informed person doesn't mean he/she read the most on a subject, but one who is logical, intelligent, and have enough basic knowledge to arrive at a reasonable conclusion when presented with evidence.

    So what we need isn't openning up the gate to allow every bit of garbage information to influence the jury, but a basic logic and intelligence test on the juror to make sure they are capable of sound reasoning.

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