The difference between books and movies is that movies have advanced so far in storytelling techniques and production values since December 31, 1922 (the current public domain cutoff date), that there is little demand among the public for movies whose copyright has expired. The "classic films" are still under copyright.

I'll stop pooping on "content creators" once people stop using that horrid term "content creator" to refer to what the law calls "authors and publishers". "Content" connotes "something to fill a box" more than creative works of authorship, and "creator" compares authors to deities.

For a lot of works, the company that produced a work no longer exists. What are the standard steps to track down ownership of copyright in a decades-old work?

Plenty of people have requested a copy of the film Song of the South on DVD or BD from Disney. I can't think of one case in the past couple decades where Disney actually sold a copy to the public.

If compliance with a law is actually impossible, the only way for a company to comply is to cease trading and return the company's property to its shareholders. One company that chose this route was Lavabit.

CloudFlare has been using SNI since Slashdot's previous story about CloudFlare expanding SSL support in September 2014. It became practical in April 2014 when Windows XP, the last desktop operating system in common use whose pack-in browser does not support SNI, reached end of extended support.

HTTPS allows multiple hostnames on one IP address on any platform whose TLS stack supports Server Name Indication. This includes essentially every web browser in common use except Internet Explorer on Windows XP and Android Browser on Android 2.x. So if HTTPS, inspect the SNI header, as it's cleartext.

Then it blocks search engines and reduces the SEO of its customers' sites on search engines that aren't big enough to get whitelisted the way Google and Bing are.

If any other CloudFlare customer sees behavior like this, try whitelisting each smaller search engine on which you want your site to appear.

Even for blind users?

These companies use CloudFlare services. Names I recognize include Reddit, eHarmony, Bain Capital, League of Legends developer Riot Games, Cisco Systems, Quicksilver, Y Combinator, NASDAQ Stock Market, Eurovision Song Contest, Massachsetts Institute of Technology, and Metallica. I've also seen CloudFlare services in use on Stack Exchange (the Stack Overflow company). If you can explain what you mean by "legit" and show how all of these companies fail tests for being "legit", I'll believe you.

Unlike copyrights, patents disregard provenance. This means that even someone who does fund his own research and development could end up independently reaching the same solutions* that Microsoft engineers reached. This would run the risk of having production shut down by Microsoft's legal department.

One thing that stops them is the exclusive license granted by national radio regulators to cellular network operators. All cellular network operators holding substantial spectrum leases have chosen to require the use of patented protocols to communicate with their networks.

* "Same" here shall be interpreted in accordance with the doctrine of equivalents.

Unless you mean Rare as in the trade name of a Twycross-based video game developer that Microsoft acquired, I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that software patents are so uncommon. See All businesses have software patent risk.

Not on removable media.

But how would the device make Ext drivers available to the computer to which it is connected without 1. presenting a patented file system on which the driver installer is stored and 2. waiting for an administrator to be present to authorize the installation?

If you want to claim SD[HX}C support

Keyword: "if". No device maker is forced to include an SD card slot. They could go with a USB port or CF slot instead and use UDF.

Have the patents on VFAT (long file names in FAT16 and FAT32) expired yet?

Would make sense to have pv panels charge them up during the day and release energy at night.

No that doesn't make any sense. The power companies are subsidizing this because it helps even out the day/night usage curve. Right now they have to build enough generating capacity for the daytime peak, then shut down a good chunk of it during the night. If they can keep it running during the night, store the power in people's home batteries, which then make it available during the day, it flattens that curve. They can satisfy more demand without having to build more plants.

That's why prices are higher during the day - there's more demand at that time. Time-shfting solar from day to night is pointless (unless you're off the grid). Just send the power from the PV panels straight onto the grid during the day when demand and prices are highest.